


Heartstrings (on my Fingers)

by Vesperchan



Series: Tumblr Shorts [18]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Character Death in previous lives, Curses, F/M, Fairytale elements, Multi, Multiple Lifetimes, Rating May Change, Red String of Fate, Reincarnation, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Theses kids are getting handsy, Tumblr Prompt, Tumblr request, hire a samurai, these characters die but it doesn't mean anything
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22513894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vesperchan/pseuds/Vesperchan
Summary: All the legends say you should never kill a golden Zmey, but all Sakura has is her hunger and her debts so why not curse herself so others might live?  Even if her curse lasts through multiple lifetimes, Sakura is willing to pay the price, whatever it may be.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Izuna, Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Madara
Series: Tumblr Shorts [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1228031
Comments: 74
Kudos: 334





	1. First Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Birkastan2018](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birkastan2018/gifts).



> Dear Vesper sensei, for the "February is for Fairytales" event - would you consider writing a piece for my favorite trope: a reincarnation/red string of fate AU featuring IndraSaku, MadaSaku and SasuSaku or a combination of any of those pairings? (I'm sorry this isn't from one of the bullet points 😬) Either way, thank you so much for writing and sharing your incredible stories with us!! 🙏🏻💖

First Life 

The tribe was small, maybe fifty heads including children, but compared to what Sakura had grown up with, her tribe felt like the bones of what her people once were. Famine did that to people and when the wild men and women of Sakura’s tribe had thought themselves safe with their hunting, plague followed close behind. 

When the elders died Sakura knew there was little hope left for the rest of her people. Their wisest were gone and there was no one left to echo the warnings of far older elders, so Sakura took up her spear and rode for the mountains. 

No one bothered to stop her anymore, and those at the edges of the camp only called out after her, begging her to return, but she set her red elk to galloping and ignored the way their cries carried on the wind. Her mother and father plus all her sisters were dead so no one would be sent out after her. Plus, even if someone _did_ care about the shame she could bring down on her line, there was no one as fast or as skilled on the horse as she. All they could do was dream about catching her. 

Sakura navigated her red elk up the side of the mountains, daring the steep sides with keen footing and unwavering confidence in Yakul to take her where she needed to go.

She had raised Yakul since he was a small thing, abandoned by his mother. Having been adopted herself Sakura knew the feelings that could bloom in a heart once there was someone in the world to want you. If raised well, he would rival the fastest of her tribe’s horses and put to shame any who wished to scale the high places.

Yakul did not disappoint Sakura, not once in all his years, and today would be no different. 

“We’re almost there,” Sakura said in encouragement to her steed. Yakul made a noise of complaint, but that was more in response to the wind he had to brace against and less because of what Sakura wished of him.

The sun was past its zenith and Sakura could see the rest of the trail they needed peek through between the rocks. She urged Yakul on and they climbed even higher. 

Nearly an hour later Sakura dismounted and unclipped on side of Yakul’s reigns to turn the worn leather into a lead. The ground had leveled and the peek of the mountain rose up behind them, but Sakura had found the plateau she needed. 

The stench and acid stains were evidence enough to indicate the end of her journey. 

Next to the beautiful blanket on Yakul’s back was a scabbard for her twin swords, two half swords that could be wielded as one or as two. Raven Wings. A birthday gift from her mother when Sakura turned fourteen and joined the tribal hunt as one of its youngest members. That had been many winters past and the blades were just as sharp and just as clean in spite of their many days of use. 

Sakura strapped the swords to her belt and readied her spear. 

“Stay, Yakul,” she said over her shoulder when Yakul tried to follow her. 

She followed the stains and burn places in the stone to the mouth of a cave and crouched there, hiding amongst the rocks. The air was foul but also dank with age. Whatever slumbered had been inactive for a good while, but Sakura didn’t doubt it fully capable of rousing on a heart beat and springing into action at the slightest sound. She would be a fool if she tried to sneak up on it like all the other foreign warriors and idiots had. 

Sakura retreated to a clearing just outside the cave and set up her fire and cooking. She added her honey and spices to the simple rice and waited for the air to clear. Soon the acid stench was replaced with something far sweeter and in turn, the creature at the heart of the cave stirred to life. 

Sakura readied herself with one last prayer before eating a handful of plain rice and crossing over to the far side of the clearing, behind some rocks to watch. 

The twin headed serpent came slithering out, clawing at the earth with his short arms and over stretched body. The horns on his head curled like polished onyx and his scales glittered in the sunlight a rainbow of different shades. Lines of gold trailed down from the crown of his heads all the way to the tip of his tail, though Sakura could not see that far from where she hid. 

A golden serpent with two heads and two hearts and a lifetime of curses coiled up inside his scaled body. 

Once upon a time he had spared her people and retreated to the shadows with a warning and a promise. He would leave her people be should they do the same, and whoever did come to kill him-should they be so unfortunate as to succeed-would suffer a curse that followed them into their next lives. 

Foreigners laughed at the legend and sought their fortune with its hide. 

No one came back from their journey up the mountain.

When the emperor offered a small kingdom for single scale of the serpent many had thought it an easy plight.

Many men died that summer. 

“ _Only the tribe can claim that kill,” her grandmother would say, sounding far off._

_“Why is that?”_

_“Because we are the ones who spared him first.”_

_“How.”_

_“One day when you are old enough for the hunt I shall tell you_.” 

The serpent sniffed at the rice and one head dipped to eat while the other kept watch. Sakura whistled into the wind and her red flacon banked sharply in the sky overhead before plunging into a dive on a war cry of its own. 

Fearless, Sakura’s falcon dove, earning the other head’s attention. It snarled, mouth open wide to snap at the bird but Sakura was there first, Spear shoved deep into its neck right under its ears where the scales were thinner than steel. 

The red falcon corrected and landed on the eyelid of the other head, tearing one eye free with his talons while Sakura rolled into the dust. The creature writhed in pain and temporary blindness but Sakura didn’t stop to watch. She sprang up out of her roll with two blades in her hands that swung like one. 

Sakura uttered words of magic and then screamed out fire in a burst that impacted on the other eye, blinding the serpent. She saw its nostrils flare but they were too wide to not hit when she threw her bag of spices his way. 

Blind and unable to smell her, it swung its head and horns out blindly without a care for the stones and rocks around him. Sakura ran around the limp head and drove her swords into the gold vein, thin and almost impossible to hit unless you were right on top of it. The serpent came open on its slits like a ripped shirt and Sakura felt the blood in her ears as it screamed its death knell. She ran down its length with the hilts of her sword separating meat and sinews until her wrists and forearms were drenched in blood. 

The body split open and the head left blind twitched once more with the last sparks of life before falling limp onto the dark stone. 

Sakura ran with her sword until she couldn’t anymore, but by then over half of its stomach had been sliced open and the glittering innards spilled out over the sides. 

Panting, Sakura pulled her swords free and then dropped them to the ground behind her, fingers burning from the effort and the acid. The air was thick with toxic smells that overpowered what had been left of her honey and spices. 

She knelt beside the chest cavity and peeled back one half of the flap to feel inside. There was an awful heat she cursed against until her fingers found the still beating hearts. Like an overripe tree branch heavy with fruits, she pulled at the stem of the vein until she could see the twin hearts. 

Even if its body was destroyed the Zmey would still live as long as its hearts beat on. 

“ _Traitor_.” 

One of the heads hissed at her, still blind and limp. It couldn’t see her and it couldn’t move, but it cursed her all the same. 

“Oh great lord of the mountain, do not forgive me for what I must do,” Sakura spoke back, kneeling in the dust to better tug out the hearts twice as big as grapefruits. 

“Your people _promisssssed_.”

“They did, but now they are dying because the racists imperials will not sell us medicine against this plague.”

“You will be cursed.”

“Better I than the people I swore myself to.” Sakura closed her eyes, feeling the darkness in her lungs from all the toxins she had inhaled. She had a little bit longer, but not much more. 

“You….” The serpent hissed, sounding different. That’s when Sakura noticed the voice came from the other head. “You are not one of the tribe.”

“I am the 31st daughter of Hashirama, the usurped emperor and a grateful daughter to the tribe that took me in as a babe. I was sorry to do it, but your scales will save what is left of my people.” 

“You are an imperial, you could save yourself.”

“I never wanted that,” Sakura said, tasting the salt of her tears as more of her body began to hurt from what she breathed in. 

“You will be cursed. No bloodline will save you from that. You will die here on our mountain and we will haunt all your lifetimes forever more.” 

Sakura bent her head, pressing her forehead to its side before kissing his scales. “Noble lords, it is more than I deserve. Thank you for saving my family.” 

The Zmey doesn’t speak again and Sakura pulls the heart free from inside its chest and then takes one in either hand to crush. The burst like overripe fruit and she feels them burn in between her fingers. When she looks down at her hands again they are drenched in deep read and a heartstring dangles from either hand, caught between her fingers.

She doesn’t bother to clean herself, but pulls a handful of different colored scales free and then wraps them up in her shirt. Sakura hobbles away from the Zmey to Yakul and drops her prize into his saddlebags. 

“Yakul, take these home,” she says, undoing his lead and freeing him. 

Yakul makes a noise of distress and buts her face with his, but Sakura doesn’t move. 

“Home, go home without me, Yakul.” 

Overhead her falcon cries out, circling. The world is dizzy and thick. Her mouth and nose are both leaking blood. There’s so little of her life left. 

When Yakul cries again Sakura doesn’t move to comfort him. “GO!” she shoves roughly and screams when he stops until he bounding down the path and off the mountain. 

Alone, Sakura stumbled back to where the toxins were thickest and collapses in between the two heads.

“I wish I didn’t have to,” she admits to the sky. She can see her falcon circling and little else. “What beautiful creatures. I am the only monster here.”

Sakura crossed her bloody, dripping hands over her chest and closed her eyes. 

That’s how they found her two days later. 

She was buried on the mountain with a metal rod curved at the end to trap her powers, as was the tradition with their magic kin. Her grave became a forbidden place, marked for the heretic that had killed their precious Zmey and saved them all. 

And that should have been the end to it.

But any person that dies with two red heartstrings in one life is sure to wake up in the next with those whose hearts they plundered in the first place. That’s just the way such magic works.


	2. Next Life

Madara knew he was a noble soul, something part divine and part wild. Becoming human had been a clear downgrade, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as he had feared it to be after adjusting. The added bonus of his brother following him into this new reincarnation was appreciated, of course. 

Being imperial princes and some of the only sons born to the emperor still couldn’t beat out their former, divine bodies, but it would suffice for the work they had to do. 

Awareness came to them early on, by the time they were three  _ human _ years old they had a majority of their memories and just as much wisdom, marking them as prodigies and the clear choice of who to back for the throne once a succession crisis broke out. That was good. It did them no good to have to worry about a false brother in this lifetime stabbing either of them in the back. 

Izuna might have taken it one step further with his duplicitous nature, smiling innocently with his face set to the sun while his hands poisoned wine goblets behind his back. 

“We have a duty in this lifetime, do we not? It does us no favors to allow distractions to survive,” Izuna explained one night over the polished stone pieces of their game board. They were grown men now, and quite settled into their new roles.

Madara let his lips curl, knowing there was no one beside his brother to see his grim features. “We don’t even know where to start with it.”

“Or  _ if _ we should start with it,” Izuna said.

Madara reached for his drink. “She’s alive. I can tell.”

Izuna didn’t ask his brother how he knew, but watched the way Madara’s eyes got lost in the reflection caught by dark wine and understood perfectly without words. Their killer had stained her hands with their blood and that heresy didn’t wash out in death. Lifetimes later she would still have the heartstrings from their divine bodies dangling off her cruel fingers. 

“Then if she truly walks this earth maybe I have an idea of how to find her,” Izuna said.

“A friend of yours?” 

“One of many.”

This friend turned out to be the palace seer, though it was commonly accepted the woman was incompetent with nine out of ten questions being off the mark while the tenth question was answered so confusingly it wasn’t worth asking in the first place. Madara detested her and called on her services only when he was forced by his lessers for the sake of formality. 

The pair of princes visited her side palace and sat through a long ordeal of her tossing bones and reading sand only for her to spout something about their great conquest in the future being one won through much blood and vice. 

Izuna sat through it all so beautifully, smiling when appropriate and complementing when it was beneficial. He worked best amongst the politicians and the nobles who cared about things like what color the emperor’s wives wore and the minting of new coins. Madara always favored the generals and soldiers who wore their scars and calluses while knowing the weight of a weapon. 

“Thank you for your beautiful words. May the sun shine upon you.” Izuna stood and touched his hands together, knuckle to knuckle. Madara rose and did the same without the traditional farewell greeting. 

“I am most humble to walk in your light, my princes,” she cooed while bowing, hands crossed over her front. “My youngest daughter will show you out.” 

Izuna smiled and looked to the corner where a young woman with scars on half of her face stood, hands crossed over her chest and head bowed. When she stood Madara could see more of the damage under one eye through the veil she wore. 

The princes followed her out and were nearly free when Izuna stopped purposefully in the middle of the hall, in sight of the steps that would lead down to the common courtyard shared by several of the distinguished ‘guests’ to the emperor. 

The daughter stopped as well and turned back to face him.

“Thank you for escorting us thus far, Mito,” Izuna began smoothly. “However, I feel the need to wander your gardens a bit more. Would you do us the favor?”

“Of course,” the red haired woman answered smoothly before turning down a different hallway, one not easily spotted for how it was cut into the wall, and out the side to a modest garden with a gazebo already set up for tea. 

“I’m really not of the disposition to sit much longer,” Madara growled low in his brother’s ear. Madara could feel his restlessness building and he wanted little more than to run free and take out his frustrations in a training yard. 

“But this is the reason we came here today,” Izuna cooly answered, smiling in a way that let Madara know Izuna was comfortable with Madara’s restlessness. For being his closest brother, Izuna was an awful tease when he got it into his heart to be. 

“I hate you sometimes,” Madara grumbled under his breath. 

Izuna tilted his chin up, and glanced back over his shoulder while ascending the first step into the enclosure behind Mito. “Then stand outside the gazebo and listen. You look better that way.”

Madara stopped where he stood and crossed his arms, intending to do exactly that. 

Mito was already seated at the table across from Izuna, but when she caught sight of Madara’s gaze she quickly averted hers and ducked her head low. 

“My mother can be quite...long winded,” Mito softly admitted. She reached for the tea and poured a cup for Izuna and then herself before speaking up again. “But in that time I was able to find what you asked me for.” 

Madara felt a soft pang in his chest and turned around to better see inside the pavilion, watching as the woman talked. 

“I shouldn’t hesitate then,” Izuna cheered, tilting his cup back and finishing off the tea. Draining the cup, he passed it back over to Mito who took a look at the contents inside and read the leaves for further insight. 

“Anything having to do with soul bonds, be it for better or worse, always subverts the traditional methods so I had to get creative, but it seems to have worked. She’s in the capital. She works with horses.” Mito paused, reading more deeply into whatever it was she saw in the leaves. “She is a slave with a name, so likely one of foreign origin.”

“Anything else?” Izuna asked, sounding casual while Madara knew his brother was very much the opposite.

“She has birthmarks that only the two of you will be able to recognize. I’m sorry, but that’s all they tell me.”

“That was more than enough,” Izuna said while standing. “It gives us a place to start and that’s far more than what your mother gave us.” Izuna then reached for Mito’s face and caught her chin underneath the veil. “If she hits you again let me know.” 

Through the fabric Madara could see the way the woman fought to hide her expressions. “Thank you, blessed prince.”

Izuna didn't say anything more but left her there, stepping out to rejoin his brother and walk with him the rest of the way to their apartments off the main palace. They stopped in the map room and pulled out one of the most recent additions to show off the movements of local tribes who roamed free of their borders. 

Izuna grinned over the map, eyes shining with scarlet light when he saw his brother’s face. “You’ve been restless enough, why not pursue that idea of conquest? We’ll need plenty of good horses for a campaign.” 

-

There were far too many damn horse stables in the capital and after a week of visiting one after the other, Madara was frustrated enough to break open the next keg of ale he saw and drink it straight if only to quit feeling as restless as he had been the past seven days. 

Izuna’s tranquility only agitated his further. 

“This won’t go on forever. You can feel it, can’t you. We’re closer.”

“That’s why I’m like this,” Madara growled. 

The pair of them were in plain clothes, or as plain as they could get while still looking important enough to spend coin on horses. They didn’t draw any eyes for their dress but neither brother was stupid enough to ignore the fact that they were the type of men that humans would look twice at simply for the pleasure of the view. 

A woman across the street stopped talking to watch them pass and she had not been the first to do so-nor would she be the last. 

Between the both of them, Madara would begrudgingly admit Izuna as the more beautiful man, but he was proud enough of his own profile and knew he was tall and strong enough to be a different kind of beautiful.

“She was cute,” Izuna teased. 

“Shut up.”

Something in Madara’s chest felt tight and he paced past his brother, increasing the stretch of his strides. When Izuna called out after him Madara only paced faster. Soon he was jogging through the streets, spurred on by something he couldn’t see. He felt the prick of a rose thorn in his chest and broke out into a run. 

He wasn’t sure if people stared but he didn’t care as he heard the sounds of hooves and neighs before he smelled the hay and sweat. 

Then something else. 

He stopped outside the gates and pushed them open, ignoring the looks as he let himself in. Someone stood up off a bench to greet him, but his eyes were already magnetized elsewhere. 

Her laughter cut off when she saw him there in the middle of the courtyard and she turned around so her back wasn’t to him where the brand of her master’s house stood out between her shoulder blades. She had the same wide eyes, as beautiful as malachite to complement hair as soft as down feathers. 

There were scars on her hands and face, but it was the red discoloration of skin around her left pink that made his heart burn. 

_ You, you, you, you- _

“My lord?” the gateman called again, sounding as nervous as anyone in his position had a right to be. 

“The master of the house, bring him to me. I mean to do business with him on this day,” Madara growled darkly before reaching into the front of his tunic and pulling free a string of gold coins. A pair fell free into the hands of the gateman, enticing him to hasten to the main house with Madara’s news. 

  
  


-

  
  


Sakura was a little lost on the way things had transpired. She had been in the service of her current master for five years, and it was five years free of beating so she was content to stay with him and his horses for a little longer. At least until she broke for the plains like she had dreamed of over a decade ago when a raid in the night stole the rest of her life away from a mother and father too soft to survive steel arrows. 

Five years with her new master and she was trusted in his stables with the horses he bought wild, tamed, and resold for a pretty profit. Sakura had made herself a perfect fit for his business, quelling the tempers of wild horses with the ‘hands of a savage girl’ before his sons broke the horses into compliance. 

It was enough to save her from beatings. 

But then the gates were opened from the outside, despite the latches that should have caught and held back any such trespasser. Then there was a man as tall as a tree with black hair longer than hers, braided over his broad shoulders to complement the same colored eyes that burned her to her core. 

She had never seen anyone so frightening.

She stepped back behind the post, keeping the horse she had been tending to between her and him. There was an air around him that whispered ‘ _ I’m dangerous’ _ in a language she never learned but knew well. 

Soon her master came out to greet the strange man, sounding ready for business with his  _ market voice _ in spite of the location being his literal front courtyard.

“My good sir?” 

The stranger produced a medallion that carried more sway than his chain of coins. “I’m an envoy of the first prince’s war council,” he explained. “We’re in the market for only the best horses. You have a reputable stock.”

Sakura watched her master bluster and bow once more in greeting, paying the proper respect to such a distinguished customer. “We have indeed some of the finest horses a prince could dream to have. Please, I shall show you some of our best stock.” Then he turned, saw her and called out. “Sakura, to me!” 

Summoned, Sakura ducked under the post and scurried to his side, bowing with her knuckles pressed against one another in the masculine way as all labor slaves were trained to. She didn’t raise her head but fell into step behind her master, walking inside his shadow as they moved from the courtyard to the stables and then the practice ring. 

“Bring the painted ones,” he told her before dismissing her with a wave. 

Sakura ran ahead and undid the stall doors to a pair of painted gray and white horses who she had dubbed Thunder and Lightning; Lightning being the sleeker of the pair while Thunder was strong enough to gleefully crush skulls under hoof. 

She rode Lightning bare back and Thunder followed dutifully behind. 

In the ring she put lightning through his paces, barebacked, and then dismounted to demonstrate a similar routine with Thunder. The pair were strong and fearless, they would be perfect for Generals to navigate onto the field of war. 

But when she looked to her master he was waving for her to get more, two fingers bent at the first knuckle,  _ two more barely broken. _ One finger meant wild, five meant docile and ready. 

Why two? No one wanted horses barely broken. 

But she ran to get the dark ones in the back who were still separated in small, padded stalls. She called out and one of the stable boys helped her lead the second one out.

“What, is the old man mad now?” Konohamaru asked, eyes bugging at the pair of horses she was managing.

“I’m not going to question it,” Sakura whispered back.

“Do you want to live?”

“I’m more afraid of men than beasts, as only one of them make any predictable sense,” she said. 

“Don’t die,” Konohamaru weakly called, holding onto the second horse while she mounted the other and started running him through the steed’s paces. There was a little resistance in running along the fence post, but Sakura strong-armed the horse whenever it wanted to stray towards the center, and then urged it on faster. 

When she was finished with the first of the wild set she was far more winded and not looking forward to mastering another wild steed for an audience. 

Looking up through her bangs she could see there was a third figure standing beside the first rich stranger, just as handsome and likely a cousin or brother. Unlike the first one, he had long silk hair falling freely down his back and over his shoulder to frame his delicate face. He was...pretty enough to be a girl, but the cut of his shoulder and bob of his throat told her he was just the most lovely human man she had ever seen. 

Oh dear. 

She mounted the second horse and thanked Konohamaru before urging this one back out into the ring. She just needed to do what they told her. 

Halfway through its paces Sakura felt the first signs of resistance in how the horse tensed under her and then braced as it started to run towards the center of the ring and kick to get her off. Sakura grabbed a fistful of hair and braced with her thighs to stay mounted without a saddle. Her legs were burning to begin with but she pushed the last of her strength into holding on least she be thrown and trampled. 

“Please don’t kill me this time,” she hissed through her clenched teeth, tugging her body as close to the neck as she could get while clearly staying on one side, in case the thrashing smash her face. 

Sakura swore and then touched her lips to the horse’s neck and whispered through her teeth into its blood a diluted spell of suggestion.  _ There was no need to thrash, no need to feel anger, no reason to be so wild right now. _

It was one of the only things she remembered her mother teacher her before-

Before. 

A heartbeat later the horse stilled and stomped in place, unwilling to go back to bucking her off but still clearly upset with the whole situation. The pair of them were both sweat stained and sticky from labor, but when Sakura urged it back to the fence it complied, moving swiftly to follow the series of postings. 

Once Sakura was finished she dismounted next to Konohamaru and trotted back to her master’s side once she saw his signal. She ducked under the fence, squeezing through, and stopped next to his side, ignoring the way both strangers watched her oddly. 

“Master?” 

“You did well.” Sakura felt her cheeks flush from the praise. She had thought to be scolded for the last horse’s temper in the ring. “As  _ I _ have done well to entrust their breaking to you. All four are to be sold to our new friends and you shall go with them.”

The happy warmth drained from her face as ice flushed through her veins. 

“Master?” 

He smiled down at her, no cruelty apparent in his expression. “Let the kitchens know it will be your last night. They’ll make you something nice to eat.”

-

“Was she this pretty the last time around?” Izuna asked idly from the threshold to their tent. He had two fingers inserted between one flap and the next, keeping an opening wide enough to see through to the outside. Madara could see the horse pen from where he sat and the girl in slave garb attending to them.

“She’s little changed.” 

“I could tell that much, but now she’s-she’s the same but not.”

“Brother, you’re supposed to be the one with a silver tongue. Where have your words gone,” Madara teased.

With an annoyed huff Izuna let the tent flap fall shut and stalked back over to his brother’s side. “I don’t like how this is going. She’s not suffering enough but it’s also too much.”

Madara pretended not to know what his brother meant. 

“It’s hard enough on her for now. We also can not neglect our responsibilities to the humans who serve us. This campaign has dragged on long enough. I am tired of camping and waiting for our paths to cross,” Madara said.

“We’re in the wilds, you’ll have a chance to kill something soon, calm down,” Izuna sighed. “If not a barbarian go out with the hunting party. I want pork.” 

Madara shot his brother an irritated look in the comfort of their tent’s privacy. No one would see him act so human behind the heavy fabrics. “How did you ever grow to be so utterly pampered and spoiled?”

“Lots of practice and silk bed sheets. Speaking of which, it’s about time I head back to those.” 

Madara squinted at his brother and then glanced towards the tent flap again. “It’s not late enough for sleeping.” 

“Humans do plenty of things on bedsheets that doesn’t have anything to do with sleep, brother,” Izuna sighed, dragging his nails up and down the front of his tunic. “And there are plenty of pretty generals who miss wearing their skirts for this war.”

“I could have done without that knowledge,” Madara all but gagged. “Get out.” 

Izuna laughed and slipped out the front, letting the flap drop behind him as he went. Madara watched the heavy fabric fall, cutting off the last break of golden light that filtered in through the gap until that fell closed too. There was no sound as he was left alone and that invited a new level of restlessness he was loathed to deal with. 

With only a few hours of daylight left he donned his simple armors and black furred cloak before exiting the tent on his own. 

There were tents and soldiers around but he ignored them all in favor of heading towards the pen where his and his brother’s horses were kept. She was still there, tending to the wild black ones. 

“Slave, I’m taking Izanagi out. Have him saddled for me,” he barked. 

He could see how she wanted to say something, to speak back or council him against such a decision, but the welts on the back of her legs still hadn’t healed so she shut her mouth and bobbed her head. 

He watched her move, pulling out the softest saddle blanket first and draping it across the restless steed. Then came the bridle and finally the saddle. 

“Are you going to be at this until the rest of the daylight fades or will I be able to leave at a reasonable time?” he taunted from where he stood. From far behind he could hear some of the generals conversing, taking note of the exchange. 

“My prince, where are you going?” one of them asked, sounding panicked. 

Madara didn’t turn to answer but kept his back to the outside of the pen and continued to watch Sakura ready his horse with an unwavering glare and arms crossed over his chest. “I am going on a ride. My brother has requested pig.”

“Alone? Please, allow one of us to escort-”

“None of you can keep up with Izanagi when I ride him and I won’t have you holding me back. The only one who can even manage to come close is this slave,” Madara said with a tone that was meant to be dismissive. 

Sakura was nearly finished saddling Izanagi when a secondary general approached Madara at the pen post. “Then take her with you. At the very least she can use her body to shield you should it come to that. You know you are too important to lose.”

Madara ignored the throb of a thorn-bush’s thorn where his heart should be. “I am also too important to be denied, General Kagami.”

“Take the slave, my prince, or my men will trail in your wake as noisily as they can.”

Madara acquiesced only because there was a note of logic to Kagami’s words, not because he was swayed to do so from the throb in his chest whenever he looked at her. He pushed off the post and crossed the courtyard to yank the lead out of her hands and roughly point back to the stables where Izanagi’s equal, the other black steed they had named Izanami paced. “You’ll follow behind me on that one. Saddle quickly as I despise waiting for my lessers. 

“Yes,” she answered obediently with her head down and her knuckles pressed together. 

Madara watched her go, expecting her to take just as long. Sakura, however, skipped the saddle and blanket entierally, vauntling up onto the other horse’s back and grabbing for a fistfuls of his man to guide him out. She looked so natural atop the beast without a stitch of proper tacking to make her look civilized. She almost looked like she belonged there. 

“Are you really ready like that?” he scoffed.

She didn’t lift her head to answer but he heard her all the same. “It’s just the same to me, sir. I’ll be better to you like this.” 

Madara didn’t let anything show on his face while he watched her, but he looked to his generals and saw Kagami notice something. He could grill the younger Uchiha later, for now the daylight was wasting. 

“Fine, let’s be off. The horses need to be run earnestly so don’t be left behind.” 

He didn’t wait for her to bob or nod before spurring Izanagi out through the door to the pen left open. The horse thundered through the camp and soon there was an echo in his wake as Sakura caught up and kept pace with him all the way out. 

There were fields and fields of long grass and then a scattering of the occasional copse of trees but no sign of large game. Plenty of rabbits and field mice, but nothing worth notching an arrow for. 

“These are your lands, are they not? Where is the game?” Madara grumbled, seemingly frustrated with the lack of life in the grasses and not anything happening inside his heart. 

Sakura didn’t answer at first and Madara magnanimously allowed her to gather her breath instead of snapping at her. At this point he could recognize her breathing as well as Izuna’s. The way she inhaled and lived a little longer with each lungful was unique to his ears, but maybe he was just sensitive to it because they were curse bound. 

“There aren’t going to be any pig out here, sir,” Sakura finally answered after she had caught her breath. She never addressed him as ‘her prince’ as that was common for foreign born slaves. He wasn’t her prince, he was her master but when she called him that it annoyed him too much.

“That’s insufferable.” 

He saw her eyes flicker to the back of his saddle and then down to the grass in clear submission. “There is elk, but the herds have moved on from this place. The best you can hope for us fox or maybe rabbit.”

“I’m tired of all that.What else is out here? Tell me what you know, my slave.” 

“...Only what you see,” Sakura admitted in a soft voice. “I wouldn’t know much more. My people lived close to the mountain.”

“They were savages from the plains. Aren’t you all the same. None of you stay in one place for long. No one knows how to make a house for that,” Madara said, meaning to be insulting. 

He liked watching her fight back the angry words and bite her lips. She couldn't say anything back to him because he was the prince and she was the slave, which was almost equal to the distance between him and her while he had been a divine beast and her, the daughter of the emperor. Back then she had been his murderer but this time around he was free to extract his measure of suffering from her however he wanted. 

He’d make her regret taking his life even if she couldn’t remember it. 

“Look at me, slave.”

Sakura lifted her head but kept her eyes down. Madara reached for her face and caught her by the jaw, squeezing just enough so she knew he wanted her gaze. When she looked at him he saw veins of rare malachite in her eyes. How the other humans didn’t notice and marvel baffled him. Yes she was a slave, but still…she was only human. 

“Why are your eyes like that?”

“They’re the eyes I was born with.”

He squeezed her jaw and she made a sound of discomfort that elicited a throb in his chest. “Sir,” she weekly added. 

“Remember your place, little thing.” He turned her head slightly to the side and then back. “I’ve seen the other barbarians, even the ones from the mountains, but they don’t have eyes like this.” 

“There are...there are others with green eyes I know. It’s common.”

“Any color could be common but that’s not what I meant,” he hissed. 

He could see there was a new gleam of gathering moisture in her eyes, gathering to turn the edges of her lids pink with irritation. “I am ignorant master, please punish me for my ignorance.” Her lashes dropped and soaked the unspilled tears, thick enough to hide her emotions. 

Madara felt his heart stutter traitorously in his chest and he wanted to rage. He wanted to throw her aside and claw open his chest if only to prove that his heart really was there-but he knew it wasn’t. She had pulled it free and crushed it a lifetime ago. The stain was still on her fingers, one for his hear on the left hand and one for Izuna’s on the right. 

“I’ve told you not to call me that,” he said while shoving her face away. “Cease your sniveling, it’s unbecoming from someone who walks in my shadow. Do you deserve better?”

Sakura waved one hand over her face, smearing the evidence before facing him once more. “No...sir.” 

“Good, then you can ride with me back. See that you keep up, I have no patience left.” 

Madara pushed Izanagi on and wasn’t at all surprised when a dull thunder echoed his as Sakura kept kept with his riding, always perfectly placed just shy of his shadow on her steed in a way no one else could manage. 

The land was wide and wild with tall grasses and a never ending sky that started to stain with gold and fuchsia shades. Racing as fast as he could came as close to flying as he dared hope in this life and was one of his greatest joys.

Madara wasn’t sure why this race back to camp was sweeter than the others. 

-

Izuna stared up at the vaulted ceiling with disinterest. 

Another week packing up and moving. Another week waiting. Another report bringing back the same damn news about tribes just out of reach.

The body in bed beside him shifted, sighing softly before readjusting and settling into place. 

The same damn routine with another pretty general he couldn’t remember the name of after having his way with her. They always seemed so much more interesting before he saw them without their armor. 

Another night with stupid dreams that left him feeling restless in the morning. 

What did Madara do when he felt like this?

Izuna shift over in bed, quieter than the breaking dawn, and dressed for the day forgoing his light armor for later on since no one would be able to see to tell the difference under his gray fur cloak. There were a number of things he could get away with under such heavy layers. 

Outside the sun was still cracking itself open like the ripe yoke of an egg from behind the low clouds, but the camp was mostly awake in their own way. Camping in enemy territory meant some part of their unit was always awake. 

Madara was probably awake, though he had been sleeping in the past few days after one poor report after another darkened his prospects for a successful conquest. 

Maybe that meant the stable tent would be empty. 

Izuna kept the ends of his cloak together and stole through the empty ways until he had to duck under the posts into the horse pen reserved for just the general and commander steeds. His and Madara’s horses were together along with several others. Next to the pen was a tent for the horse master to sleep that emptied into a wagon filled with high quality hay. 

Their Stable master had his own tent and the only one who would be left would be the slave in charge of breaking the last two wild steeds, meaning there would be no one around to watch Izuna’s expressions come undone.

He heard her breathing before he saw her. Like the way Madara sounded different from all others, Izuna could tell it was her on sound alone. He and his brother had conversed about it once and concluded it was just one more facet to the curse that kept her bound to them, cycling and recycling through new liftimes for as long as time. 

Izuna fingered his cloak, knowing it was cold in the night for those who didn’t have the luxury of a private tent or fancy furs. She’d be envious of him in her heart, maybe enough to even show it on her face. 

Izuna rounded the side of the wagon where they hay remained and stilled. She was there, asleep and peacefully so. Any human would be if they had Madara’s heavy cloak draped carefully over their form.

There was a welling of angry heat deep in his gut as Izuna looked at what his brother had done. The girl who had killed them, kissed their scales, and rested her body between their heads was in their service to suffer. She had killed them-divine beasts! She had pulled their hearts out, held them in her hands and ended their blessed lives for the sake of a ragtag group of nameless humans. They were born to hate her, to make her suffer as punishment for all she had done to them. 

Why was she sleeping so _peacefully_ in Madara’s cloak?

Izuna felt a new roll of anger come with the dawning of an idea and he dashed forward to rip the cloak back and check to see if she was still dressed and decent.

Sakura startled awake and scrambled backwards, eyes wide and clear as she saw who it was who stood over her. 

“Master I-” She didn’t have time to finish as Izuna struck her across the face.

“Thief! How dare you steal from your masters. What is this and how did you get it?” he demanded in a tone that betrayed his simmering rage. 

“You-the first prince left it on me but I didn’t s-”Izuna grabbed her face, hand spread over her mouth to grab her and render her silent least he strike her again for the quiet. 

“My brother would never show you a kindness. Say it, say you  _ stole _ it.”

She was a slave, a captured girl from a tribe wiped out in a savage land. She was nothing next to the divine son of the emperor.

Yet she looked at him and Izuna felt little. 

Her eyes were polished malachite with shades of darkness that made the color all the more enticing. Her gaze wasn’t the gaze of a slave’s when she looked at him. Her cheek was red and her mouth was covered, but her eyes were strong and saw right through him. 

_ Did she know how he felt _ ?

“I am not a thief. Hit me if you want. I won’t lie for you.”

He had never heard that tone of voice from her before. She had been all beant necked, and low lidded around him and his brother, but here in the hay in a wagon out of sight where no one could see either of them, her eyes pinned him in place and made the heat scattered throughout his body. 

“Say you stole it.”

She didn’t waver. “I am not a thief.” 

Izuna ignored how his hand shook. “You’re a slave-you’re  _ my _ slave. You’ll say what I want you to say.” 

“I’m not a thief and I’m not a liar, master. Beat me if you need to, but I will not be anything but honest to you.” 

Izuna forced his hands to still and cease their shivering. “Then tell me how my brother’s cloak ended up on your body because the only reason for that could be because you stole or seduced it from him.” 

“I can’t fathom the mind of the first prince. It was cold in the night. He came and left it on a whim or for his own reasons. I can not speak for him, but I will say I’m no thief or liar, and there isn’t a creature alive that could make your brother do what he doesn’t want to do so seduction isn’t an option for him.” 

It was...maybe the most words she had ever said to him. He felt like someone had slapped him across the face but he didn’t...hate it. She wasn’t talked to him like a slave should and that was reason enough for him to discipline her but...he... 

Izuna dropped her face and stepped back. Before she could say anything more he was up and stalking out of the tent, away from her wagon, vaulting over the pen, and heading back into his tent. 

He had his cloak draped over his shoulder before he was even inside. The pretty red haired general with aqua colored eyes was sitting up in bed, searching for her things to wear when he entered. 

“My prince I-”

“Keep your pants off, I’m not done,” he all but growled. 

-

“You’re upset with me.”

Izuna didn’t answer.

“Fine, be a brat. I don’t mind,” Madara huffed in exasperation before returning to the map on his desk. There were a few marks scratched out in different places from reports that detailed the movements of the nearby tribes that Madara was trying to make sense of. 

Izuna kept her silence but it didn't last for long.

“You gave her your cloak! What part of ‘she killed us’ do you not understand? Because of her we’re stuck like this and she’s no worse off. She took everything from us and you-you!” Izuna stalked across the room and slammed his hands down atop the map. “You gave her your warmth.” 

“And you cried out her name in the night, what is your point?” 

Izuna staggered back. “That’s a lie.”

“It’s too novel to be a rumor the lady generals came up with on their own. None of them would be creative enough to stoop so low and actually remember the slave’s name.”

“That’s-that’s not true but even if it was it would have nothing to do with us.”

Madara glared down at the map and then up at his brother. He watched Izuna for a beat longer before replying. “I’ve never known you to lie to me. Why start now?” 

Izuna stayed frozen in place, too human looking as his older brother held his gaze. “It was a mistake, just like the cloak then.”

“I didn’t make any such mistake. I did what I meant and I meant what I did. You are the emperor’s son and the spirit of a divine beast, lies don’t suit you,” Madara said.

“How can you say that? She’s our slave. She’s our killer and it’s our prerogative to bring her suffering for her sins. You remember what it was like, don’t you? You remember what she took from you yet you gave her your cloak.”

“It was cold and she might have died without it. Is that what you want? She would only die to be reborn once more in the next life alongside you and I. Those scars deem it so. We’re soul bound, for better or worse so why not ensure her life during this time is a longer one.”

Izuna scoffed and started to pace across the carpets. “She’s vain and has attitude for a slave. She denied me and spoke to me like we were equals.” 

“Where you being a brat?” 

Izuna flushed in front of his brother. “Don’t change the subject.”

Madara didn’t roll his eyes, but his expression came close to conveying that same sense of mild annoyance with his antics. “It was a valid inquiry. You’ve always been a brat and were likely making unrealistic demands of her.” 

“It’s our right. She killed us.”

“You keep saying that like you think I don’t know. Believe me, brother, I miss the sky more than you think I do, but there is nothing I can do here or to her that will change our fates. That was the genesis of our curse, the incentive to keep others from hunting our nobel selves. What we wanted is no longer in our reach and I am tired of crushing flowers for the sake of idle destruction.”

Izuna felt dread pool low in his belly, followed by a heat like anger. “No.”

Madara looked up from his map and frowned. “What now?” 

“You don’t hate her.” 

“Hate requires too much energy.” 

Izuna felt his face twist up into something close to disgusted. He thought back to all the morning rides and evening runs his brother would go on, taking the slave girl with him because she was the only one who could keep up. They had been going out for weeks now. 

“You are  _ fond _ of her.” 

Madara was not the type of person to lie so he said nothing. 

Izuna felt anger in his stomach and in his throat. “How dare you betray me like this.”

“I am not betraying you, little brother, calm yourself and take a drink if you have to. You’re making this into something it doesn’t have to be. She suffered enough being a slave in this world.” 

“No she doesn’t.”

Madara shook his head and sighed. “She has no family. Everyone she ever loved was slaughtered in front of her and she’s been beat by plenty other masters that came before us. Let that be enough justice for now.” 

“How is that justice?”

“Do you know what it feels like to starve as a human?”

Izuna went still, more confused by the question than startled by it. “What? No. Why would I?”

“Apparently it’s maddening. She’s been starved before. It doesn’t seem like much to us, but she’s human. Everything is measured on a different scale that we’re only now just beginning to understand.”

“She was human when she killed us and the pain she felt in that body wasn’t enough to stop her then. What’s hunger to a human anyway?”

“Try it out and see for yourself,” Madara challenged. 

Izuna scoffed and then looked to the far table where his brother’s dinner should have been, but there was no platter and there were no plates. “When was the last time you ate something?” 

“Dinner, two days ago. Sakura went without food for a week regularly. I’m not sure I will be able to match her resolve.”

Izuna stormed across the room to Madara’s desk and pushed off the map before grabbing the front of his brother’s shirt to pull him up when Madara didn’t resist. “You are not the one who is meant to suffer in this life. What the hell are you doing to yourself?” 

Madara opened his mouth to say something but there were horns blowing outside that he shoved Izuna aside to race towards. 

“My prince, the scouts have spotting the hunting party. We plan to intercept in half an hour’s time,” one of the his generals roared before jumping the pen’s fence to get to his painted stallion. 

Madara barked in delight and ran for the same pen, already in his armor and wild enough to forget Izuna was still clinging to his arm.

“Eat something before you go, you idiot!” Izuna demanded, yanking his brother back hard. 

“No time you-where is your armor, Izuna?” 

“I wasn’t prepared like you. I’ll lead the second wave. Go, I’ll send a slave with bread, eat it while you ride,” Izuna huffed in annoyance. The anger from earlier was gone. They were brothers again. 

Madara paused briefly before bending down to touch his forehead to his brother’s. “Stay safe.” 

And then he was gone. 

Izuna ran into his tent to find two servants already assembling his armor. With their help he had donned his best set and was outside in time to see his brother’s dust cloud fading in the distance.

The pen was open and Sakura already had his steed ready, leading the dark black mare out for him to mount. Of the two black steeds, Izanami had been the far wilder one but with Sakura’s hands the mare had gentled while sacrificing not of her swiftness or speed. 

“Stay safe,” Sakura whispered during the commotion. 

Izuna almost froze, but then realized that her words had been for the damn horse, not him. 

“We’ll bring back our wounded. Tell the other slaves to get the tents ready to tend to their injuries. Boil water and get the fresh linines ready,” he barked, sounding meaner than he meant.

Sakura looked up at him and her eyes were so clear and wide he almost reached for them. “You come back safe too.” 

Izuna warmed under his armor. “I thought you hated me.” 

“Not enough to want to see you dead.”

“You’re,” he inhaled, “quite bold with your answers.”

“I am not a liar.” 

“Hn,” he said before digging his heels into Izanami’s side and urging her forward. 

-

The tribes had gathered in mass to stage a mounted resistance but could not find victory against the empire’s superior weapons and armor in spite of the numbers. 

It had been bloody but the tribes fled first and dragged their wounded with them while the Uchiha nursed far softer hurts. 

The returning march had been one of grim victory, for they had achieved what they sought an a high price. They would need to return to the capital and end their campaign here considering the number of wounded and resources left. 

Before they were back in camp they saw the fires and smoke from a still burning tent. One other had collapsed and in between several others they could see bodies. 

Women from the tribe, donning simple armor and wearing their bone weapons. 

Izuna and Madara broke into a heedless gallop the rest of the way.

The pen was broken and the wagon empty. There were parts of bodies scattered but neither brother recognize any as belonging to Sakura. 

One of the Uchiha ran to greet them and was already explaining the details when Kagami came up to join them. 

“Where is everyone else?” Madara demanded darkly. “The slaves and healers?”

The Uchiha pointed to a tent and tried to explain more but Madara was already off. Kagami and Izuna stayed behind, listening to the debrief of events until Izuna excused himself to his own untouched tent to change from his battle soaked armor. 

At least that was the excuse he gave. 

He ducked behind his tent and started to weave through the leftover carnage. The attach had been recent as the blood was still red and fresh on the grass and the smell as ripe as it was on the battlefield. 

Izuna saw a trail of dead tribeswomen and men, all having been neatly disposed of in the space between two tents. At the end-

He stopped where he stood and was helpless to the sight. 

She didn’t wear any armor, so the six different arrows standing out from her neck, shoulder, side and back had all sunk in deep enough to do their worst. She had an Uchiha’s weapon in her hands and it was dark with blood. Her arms were cut too, but so much of the blood was splattered across her bare hands and legs from others she had killed. 

Izuna called her name softly and then picked his way across the rest of the bodies to kneel beside her. 

She didn’t move. 

He wasn’t sure why he felt like he had been the one killed when he looked at her. But he felt the sob in his throat turn his mouth to cotton. He called her name again and when she didn’t move he choked. He touched her face and held it in his hands and tried to say her name but the words wouldn’t come. 

They still had years left to...to be together to...they were supposed to curse her. She wasn’t allowed to leave them like this!

‘ _Who allowed you to die on me?’_ he wanted to demand but there was no one left to hear him. 

With his hands wet from tears he grabbed at her right hand and wiped it free of blood. He rubbed her knuckles as clean as he could and saw the stain on her pinky meant for him. 

“I’m going to be right behind you. Just...wait, and next time, I'll do better...” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think? What about the next lifetime? How many lifetimes will it take before the Uchiha get over their Uchiha ways?


	3. Mini drabble

They saw her again in Judea among the widows and urchins who trailed behind the harvesters and scavenged their cast offs. In that lifetime she had been a subject of charity, and in that culture such women rarely showed their faces with much pride. 

She was not most woman. 

Maybe it was because she was such a beauty, or maybe because she was strong enough to carry enough grain for a man twice her size, but for whatever reason, she did not look away when Madara's servant asked her to state her name. She didn't look to the servant, even though he was above a beggar such as herself as far as the station was concerned. Instead she looked up to those beautiful red eyes of his as they absorbed every detail of her from atop his decorated steed.

But before Madara or his brother could make her their own, one more tragedy stuck. She died in the raid and no amount of blood or vengeance could sate either brother after they found her corpse outside the grain house. 

Then Izuna found her in Greece a century and a lifetime later. She was a priestess in the temple to yet another warrior goddess. Like tragic Medusa Izuna wished to drag her from the holy places and make her his but the Persians had their way first, leaving the temples as empty as the streets of each ravaged town they tore through. 

Another hundred years they meet once more in the midst of the desert outside a city of brass, but by the time they reach her she is nothing more than a curse left barely alive to warn would-be thieves not to touch her jewels before falling back into the enchantment a dinji left her to. 

Madara and his brother made short work of her guards and destroyed all the vessels they could find, but nothing they do brings Sakura out of her enchantment.

Izuna wailed for his brother to stay his hand but Madara was in no mood to live out another eighty years with a beautiful corpse when he knew they had better chances in their next life. They buried her in their family’s tomb and braced for what would come next. 

She was a gladiator. 

She was a slave.

She was the daughter of a criminal.

She was a barbarian. 

One lifetime after another and Madara began to believe he and his brothers were really the ones cursed in all of this. Every cycle ended just as tragically as the first, with no sign of Sakura’s misfortune running out for the next time her soul manifested as a new life upon the earth. 

Then they were in Japan.


	4. Japan

Then they were in Japan.

  
  


Sakura woke and dressed for the day, rising before the sun could leave the horizon and returning to her home while her shadow was still long. 

She fell into her routine wordlessly, knowing there was no longer anyone to watch over her and chastise her for any perceived laziness. The only other bed in the house was empty and her adopted grandmother would never be back to fill it. It had been two weeks already, or maybe it had been two years. 

Time all felt the same. 

Then Ebizō’s retainer came for her right before the snow could fall on the mountain. 

She heard the horses first and finished washing her face in a rush, dropping the hand cloth onto the floor instead of the edge of the bucket. Moisture still clung to her lashes and made the short hairs around her ears and neck curl. 

There were three of them, but the woman never dismounted and instead stayed behind with the other two horses. The other two were young, maybe younger than herself, but were decorated and clothed well enough to be important people. A heartbeat later Sakura recognized the official crest sewn into their uniforms. Chiyo still had one at the bottom of one of trunk. 

“You’re a little late,” Sakura told the shorter redhead as he approached the house. “The old woman’s been dead for weeks now.” 

“Chiyo sama...has passed. My condolences.” he dipped his head and the stray bangs fell across his eyes before he could straighten out. “You must be the Haruno child. I am Gaara. Thank you for greeting us.”

Sakura _hadn’t_ greeted them but didn’t care enough to try and figure out if he was being purposefully dense or rude. 

“Did her brother send you in his place to pay his respects? Her grave is not near this dwelling, I’m afraid,” Sakura said.

“We shall pay our respects some other day. Unfortunately we are pressed for time and can not afford any deviation from the task our master set us on.” 

“And that would be?”

Behind the redhead his older, darker haired brother stepped forward to whisper something to Ebizō’s favorite, the boy called Gaara. Chiyo had told Sakura stories about these people. 

“We were tasked with recruiting more competent vessels for the estate,” Gaara began, “we can take you back at least. You were Chiyo’s apprentice, were you not?” 

“Something like that,” Sakura admitted. 

“Ebizō sama would like to employ your services for the pending alliance,” Gaara said. 

Sakura thought Gaara quite bold to speak so plainly. It oddly reminded her of Chiyio since her former master never was one to beat around the bush or waste her breath on pleasantries. Sakura couldn’t remember a time Chiyo ever made small talk with anyone. Gaara was surprisingly similar in that respect. 

“I don’t know the first thing about any business Ebizō or Chiyo would have been up to and I don’t know anything about some pending alliance,” she said. “What would you need my help with?” 

“Chiyo was a first class battle medic, was she not?” 

“Doesn’t mean _I’ve_ seen battle,” Sakura snapped. 

Gaara’s eyes dipped to stare at her scarred hands before returning to her face with a nonchalant hum that irked Sakura. “Ebizō sama would like to employ you in any capacity you are willing to enter into, both out of respect to your family and due to the praise Chiyo sama issued in her correspondences with her brother.” 

“She never told me about that.”

“Was she the type to compliment you to your face?” Gaara asked.

Sakura rolled her tongue over the inside of her cheek, fighting to keep her knee jerk reactions to herself. Chiyo would have rather croaked than admit someone had talent or promise. It seemed like this Gaara kid knew Chiyo’s personality well enough. 

“Why should I go with you?” Sakura asked instead. 

“It doesn’t look like there is a lot left here for you. Will you spend the rest of your days selling flint down the mountain? That doesn’t sound very challenging.”

“Maybe I like boring work.”

“You have too many scars on your hands for that.” 

Sakura almost bit the inside of her mouth. Gaara didn’t sound haughty in tone, but his words rubbed her the wrong way, mostly because they were right. 

Her eyes rolled back and the shabby corners of the house stood out, all the more dark now that she took notice of them. The interior was dirty because there was no nagging voice driving her to wash down the damn walls. The hearth was cold because there was no one screaming at her to stoke it. The meals were bland because there was no one to critique the lack of spices.

The days were too damn quiet.

“I’m expensive,” Sakura finally answered. “Your precious Ebizō sama better be willing to handle me. I assume he knows what he’s purchasing.”

“How soon can you be ready to leave?” Gaara asked.

“How far is his castle?” 

“By horse, maybe two days of hard riding.” 

Sakura looked past Gaara to the three horses he can come with, one for every member of his party with none leftover. “I’ll need to purchase a mount from the village at the bottom. Give me half an hour to pack and trip to the livery stable.” 

“I can run down and get one for you,” the other brother called out. 

Sakura frowned at his outburst but reached into her shirt to pull free the money pouch that was tied close to her breast where it wouldn’t jingle. “Use my money and get the only one that’s not a Misaki, I’m not a farmer.”

“Aren’t you short enough for a Misaki breed?” Gaara absently commented. 

Sakura paused in the doorway to stare at the boy and even his brother paused at the comment. Kankuro glanced your way, watching and waiting to see what she would say next. 

Gaara noticed the awkward silence a heart beat later but seemed only mildly surprised by it. “It was an observation that could be made of _any_ of us.”

“Buy the Kisouma shorthair,” Sakura barked to Kankuro, “and make sure he includes the saddle and bags!”

She shut the door to her shabby home on Gaara, not caring how rude she was being. He didn’t seem to care for social niceties so he probably wouldn’t mind if she closed him out to change. 

There wasn’t much to pack, but she had little doubt she’d ever come back for anything so she took care to pick up and pack. She had a couple of kimino and then even more work clothes but she couldn’t bring her entire wardrobe so she left the pale yellow kimino on Chiyo’s bed for someone to help themselves to if the house was ever discovered.

After her clothing she took what food she could before casting the excess out the window for the animals and then hurried with the last few miscellaneous items, things she could sell off later if she got caught up in a bind. There wasn’t much of anything that made her nostalgic apart from what she already wore under her shitagi shirt. A long black cord with two red glass beads was tucked into the bindings around her breasts. 

_“You’ve been cursed longer than history can stretch. It’s a primordial fate that’s fucked you twice over in every lifetime. Don’t let these turn black.”_

The memory still agitated Sakura twelve years later. 

“If you were so wise why didn’t you tell me how to break my damn curse,” she grumbled to herself before turning to the last item of value in the room.

Sakura pulled open the polished doors on the old woman’s wardrobe and reached inside to start donning the armor. 

She donned the pieces one by one, the special kyahan leggings, the waraji sandals, and the suneate greaves that fit like a glove over her calves. She was able to tie the haidate piece around her waist so that the red colored thigh armor fell where it needed to, but the gloves and armored sleeves proved more challenging to put on without Chiyo’s help. The same was true of the arm defenses she slipped into like a vest before tying across her chest. 

Twenty years ago Chiyo had put away the old set and thought her onna bugeisha days behind her. The set was as elaborate and professional as any man’s, meaning it benefited from another set of hands, but just like Chiyo Sakura had to dress herself alone.

_“No one is going to help you in life more than you yourself, so learn to deal with it now. Maybe then you’ll be ready for when the dogs catch you by your ankles, ha!”_

The breastplate piece, the _do_ or cuirass, was the same dull red color as the thigh armor, while the belt and gorget that protected her neck were black. Completing the outfit, the shoulder pads were a deep red to match everything else. 

After strapping Chiyo’s swords to her side, Sakura pulled down her helmet to hold under her arm but before she could slip it over her knotted hair there was a knock at the door. 

“Enter,” she barked before slipping the helmet on. 

When she turned around Gaara was there but he didn’t say anything when she turned to face him. He was staring at the armor and that was understandable. It was an old set that was painted with Chiyo’s old war dogs, two black hounds that chased each other across the breastplate. 

It was a shame Chiyo never trained any more war hounds. All she had taught Sakura had been medicine and sword form, things that made her desirable on the Shogi board of life but not all that interesting. 

“What?” Sakura snapped. 

“I’m back!” Kankuro shouted from somewhere out of sight outside. 

Sakura brushed past Gaara with her bags under her arm and her helmet adjusted and in place. In the doorway their shoulders brushed and Gaara was the one who was pushed back as Sakura was a half head taller and so much broader. 

“The fucker gave you the cheap bags,” Sakura growled when she saw the decorated horse left saddled for her. Kankoro didn’t say anything but backed away, dropping the reins into the dirt. 

Sakura tugged the horse closer before patting down his scraggly neck. He was a good horse but hadn’t been properly brushed or cared for in a long while. She filled the saddlebags with her provisions and checked the holsters for the saddle before swinging herself up. 

The only one seemingly unaffected by her change of attire was the sister, Temari. Across her back she carried a pole arm and was dressed in light armor. Her smile was keen and her eyes were sharp.

“Ready to go, Haruno sama?” Temari asked in mock respect with an undertone of playful teasing. 

“I don’t know the damn way, do I?” Sakura snorted before glaring over the mask piece at Gaara and Kankuro. “Get mounted. You’re the ones who said we were in a hurry.” 

Two full days of hard travel meant three days on the road, considering when they started and when they wanted to arrive. The first day they spent with a family in their barn, the second day in the woods, and the third day they found another family who would accommodate them in their barn in exchange for coin. 

Temari turned out to be decent company as she could make conversation without fumbling through her words, which was more than Kankuro could do. Gaara was too quiet and kept to himself, though he watched her keenly enough to not miss anything. 

The night before they reached Ebizō sama’s castle Sakura asked about the old man and what he was like. His sister had been the warmonger and he had been the strategist who suited the politics of lordship far better than his hot headed stubborn sister. 

His grandson Sasori had done well enough in establishing beneficial alliances with their neighbors, and one such alliance was with the Uchiha clan, a patriarchy as reclusive as they were old. 

Temari told Sakua that they had been friendly with the Uchiha for years but only recently were they moving forward with an alliance for the sake of all the unrest they were seeing with the neighboring lords. 

The country wasn’t unified yet so there was always the taste of war somewhere on the wind.

“Am I the only one he’s hired to impress his new allies?” Sakura asked on their last night together. 

“Not nearly, but you are the most prominent. I don’t think he was expecting the ghost of his sister when he sent us to find you. Why’d you choose to travel wearing her armor. It looks heavy as hell.”

Sakura snorted before answering. “It is heavy as hell, but it’s a pain to pack properly and I feel better wearing it off her property. Once we’re inside the castle walls I’ll shed, but until then...” Sakura backed up and reclined against the hay pile she had thrown her blanket over. She had shed her shoulder guards, and helmet but everything else remained on her body. “I’d rather die looking good, thank you.”

Temari laughed but set up her bed for sleep soon after. 

In the morning they took extra time to clean themselves up and traveled for another couple of hours through Ebizō’s city before they reached his castle. The streets were thicker with activity that always followed when someone important visited their lord. 

“The Uchiha came to visit in number and it was a trade boom for the people,” Temari explained as they neared the castle, putting distance between themselves and the crowds. 

“How big is the Uchiha party?” Sakura asked as they were led through the gates by someone who recognized the siblings. 

“The two main family brothers and then their cousins, ones they’ve adopted as brothers plus their retainers. The party is about ten to twelve strong, all men.”

“I bet they eat like thirty.”

Temari laughed as someone came up to take their horses and lead them into the stables. Sakura dismounted and walked a half step behind the eldest sibling, not minding that Gaara and Kankuro were behind her left and right shoulders like the offshoots of a split shadow. 

Ebizō sama was in the back courtyard under the plum trees with his guests taking snacks and tea. Nothing was in bloom but the trees were full with foliage and thick with leaves, obscuring sight enough to make it a surprise when Sakura and her party rounded the last bend and saw who was actually outside eating. 

Sakura had never seen Ebizō in her life but he looked so much like Chiyo it was easy to recognize the wrinkled old man apart from the younger Uchiha and his red haired grandson. 

Ebizō sama was the lord of the castle and the honorable elder but Sakura felt her eyes caught like magnets to the pair of brothers who sat with their backs to the trees, watching her arrival. 

Gaara stepped forward to greet his great uncle and maybe Kankuro said something too but Sakura was caught. The rest of the world was a dull hiss and whisper of white noise as the red beads on her cord burned deep beneath her clothes. 

_“You’ve been cursed longer than history can stretch. It’s a primordial fate that’s fucked you twice over in every lifetime. Don’t let these turn black.”_

“-and she’s already in armor that complements yours, Uchiha san. She’ll fit perfectly into your ranks,” Ebizō laughed. 

Sakura didn’t remember much of what happened next but she remembered the panic she buried deep in her heart when the Uchiha elder smiled at her with a mouth that could snap her heart in half. 

_Shit_.

She woke in the morning and dressed in a faded red hitagi and dark green Kobakama trousers. She left her feet bare as she cycled through her stances and practiced her forms with the sword. The sun came up over the garden and she retreated to her room, pausing only once she noticed the figure on the walkway watching her. When he saw her stop he smiled and she stiffly bowed in response. 

“You’re up earlier than me again,” he called out to her as if they were old friends. There wasn’t the barrier of manners that kept him on the walkway as he stepped down to approach her with his robes trailing.

“You should still be sleeping, lord Izuna,” Sakura replied with her eyes cast down. “Your personal physician already told you this much.” 

“My personal physician doesn’t know how to appreciate the beauty in this world and would have me locked up and blind if my brother listened to him.”

“There will be other sunrises you can wake for.” 

Izuna laughed, lifting the sleeve of his robe to cover his mouth. “I could see a hundred blazing sunrises and still want to see a hundred more. Each day and each dawn brings its wonders anew. I don’t want to miss a single one.”

“You should still return to your room and rest until the morning chill subsides.”

Izuna hummed and extended an arm for her to take, the way his physicians sometimes would when they worried about his strength failing. “Lead me?” 

Sakura wanted nothing more than to leave the Uchiha to his own devices, knowing he was more than capable of walking back to his bed chambers on his own, but he was important to her employer so she would play nice for Ebizō’s sake. 

“You’re infinitely kind,” Izuna cooed softly. 

The temptation to snap a quick retort about how he was frustratingly fake and saccharine made Sakura bite the inside of her mouth once more to keep the words from slipping free. Her poor cheek was a wall of scars on the inside.

“You are generous with your compliments as always,” Sakura forced herself to respond.

“Only with you,” he joked. 

“I didn’t say you were smart,” Sakura muttered before she could bite herself again. 

But instead of being offended Izuna gasped in delight and leaned more on Sakura, pressing himself closer. “Have I finally flustered our unwavering cherry blossom? You know you don’t have to mind your words with me. I told you we were friends, did I not? Friends speak freely with one another.” 

“I dare not forget my place here,” Sakura said. “You are my elder, Uchiha sama.”

He hated it when she addressed him so formally, especially when she referred to him as _Uchiha_ since that, ‘was the same name as every damn brother under the sun,’ and didn’t do anything to help endear him to her. 

“Sakura, you make me sound so much older when you say it like that. Izuna, I-zu-na, like I taught you. Don’t make me so sad.”

“This is exactly the sort of conversation that makes me resort to such stuffy titles, Uchiha sama. Don’t forget who you are when you talk to me.”

Izuna sagged a bit on her arm but continued to walk with her back to his room. “I remember quite well who I am. No matter where the rivers of fate deposit me I have never forgotten who I am. True, I am great and worthy of glory, but do not sell yourself short, my dear. I find you a true delight, superseding any inherent glory you may be born without.”

“Thank you my lord, but I’d much rather earn my glory in this life than be born into it.”

“I know.” 

I was such a typical comment for Izuna to make, but it still felt heavier than it should have. He was the carefree brother who smiled like a flower while secretly being the snake that hid beneath its petals. She didn’t want to ever admit that his words shook to her.

After surviving a castle fire meant to kill him in his sleep Izuna’s lungs had never been the same. The fearsome younger brother didn’t stay down long, and instead adapted to make use of his keen intellect to guide his brother to victory. Many outside parties had even admitted that it was Izuna’s connections and keen strategies both on the field and off that promoted the Uchiha clan to where they were now. His brother might be hailed as the god of the battlefield but Izuna was the artist behind every victory.

Sakura knew all this but she was still at a loss as to why the younger of the two brothers continued to spend his time seeking her out to antagonize. 

“Here is your room, lord Izuna,” Sakura said, stopping just outside the doorway that had been left open. She could see into his room but didn’t stare too long that way. 

Izuna hummed but didn’t move away from her. Instead he turned her hand over and traced the pattern of the scar left on her pinky. “I haven’t called for a servant yet. Will you help me once more?”

“What do you require?” Sakura asked, her voice wary. 

“I need some morning tea. Will you…?” Izuna inclined his head, gesturing to his room instead of finishing the rest of his sentence.

“Will you stay and rest while I brew the tea?”

“Will you share it with me? I’ll even promise to take my medicine this time.”

“That makes it sound like you wouldn’t take your medicine if I wasn’t there.”

Izuna’s smile widened. “Well, _will_ you?” he echoed his earlier question with far more mirth in his dark Uchiha black eyes.

“I can understand why there are never any servants to attend to you,” Sakura sighed before stepping over the threshold, leading Izuna in on her arm.

She made sure Izuna was situated at the low table before taking his tea set to the nearest kitchens to fill with water and brew. There were morning snacks left out that she helped herself to while preparing a tray of food for the young lord, following the memorized steps she had picked up after her first week in the castle. 

This wasn’t the first time and likely would not be the last time Izuna bullied her into doing his servant’s work for him in order to antagonize her. It was less of a headache to give in than it was to tell someone about it and risk angering the Uchiha side of the alliance. 

He didn’t act like a prince. 

The honeyed water boiled and Sakura took it from the fire. She added it to the tray and double checked it for all the different pieces before picking it up and carrying it back. 

On the walkway she heard the familiar sound of a blade cutting wind. When she looked out she saw the other Uchiha brother practicing his stances on the far field. There was no one to oppose him and no one to watch, but he flowed through the stances and forms like water over river rock. There was no hesitation in his movements and it was almost like watching a dance when he moved. There were no openings Sakura could see. 

Madara was the master of a perfect defense. 

Before he could turn and see her watching, Sakura hurried down the rest of the walkway and into Izuna’s room, leaving the door open behind her. Izuna was where she left him, sitting at the table with his medicine still in the small paper envelope. 

Izuna brightened when he noticed Sakura enter and she wondered if there was any other reason why he enjoyed teasing her so much.

“Tea always tastes better when you brew it,” he cheered childishly.

“You’re not a very good liar, lord Izuna, even with a face as believable as yours,” Sakura sighed before pouring the tea. Izuna watched her go through the steps, smiling all the while. 

“I miss it when you’re not here in the mornings,” Izuna finally admitted. “No one talks to me like you apart from brother, but I’m already tired of his dehydrated face.”

“I train with Sasori sama and his company most mornings.”

“Yes, you’re quite competent,” Izuna sighed dramatically. “He has you running plenty of his little drills and errands. I thought you were Ebizō’s granddaughter.” 

“It’s what he calls me but his sister was the one who took me as her grandchild.”

“Chiyo sama had no children so it is only natural you be deferred to as her grandchild and heir. Sasori still antagonizes you too much from an observer’s point of view.”

Sakura set Izuna’s tea cup down in front of him before pouring a cup for herself, following the steps until it was in front of her. “Some might say that is because he holds me to a higher standard or sees I have promise.”

“That or maybe he is jealous.” 

Sakura glanced up through her lashes at the Uchiha across from her. He was the godly strategist who never wasted his words when he wanted something. 

“There is nothing for my cousin to envy me for. I have no grand ambition and am not backed by a noble house or clan. Ebizō would not be stupid enough to suspect such a fool’s slander as possibility.”

“But what of your cousin?” Izuna asked, lifting his tea to his lips. 

“My cousin will defer to Ebizō with respect. There is nothing more that needs to be said, lord Izuna,” Sakura answered calmly before sipping her tea. 

“If you say so.”

Izuna tipped back the paper and swallowed the white powder before washing it down with tea. He requested another cup and Sakura stayed until he had his fill, three cups later. 

When Sakura reached to take his tea set away to be cleaned he waved her off, claiming he had bothered her enough for one day before urging her to return to her own business. 

Sakura didn’t bother to stop and suspect, too eager to be on her way and return to her planned tasks. She bid Izuna farewell and slipped out before she could see him reach for her empty cup. 

Left alone in his room with the door wide open to the rest of the world Izuna tipped Sakura’s cup back and sucked the last dregs of tea left on the bottom, hungry for even the slightest hint of a taste off her lips. 

Sakura sat on the edge of the roof, a bit too eager to watch as her cousin rolled his shitagi shirt down to tuck into his trousers before circling his opponent across the dirt. Madara didn’t even wear his shirt anymore, standing tall in his trousers and bare feet with a practice sword in one hand. 

Unlike his younger brother, Madara’s hair was a wild mane that no braid or comb could tame for very long. In the morning someone had tried to braid it back but the weaving had come undone and flowed down his back to just past his shoulder blades. 

Under the unfiltered sun and in the middle of the day Sakura could see the history of violence marking his body in scars and burns. His brother Izuna was not without his own scars, but it was nothing in comparison to Madara’s own collection. The medical side of Sakura’s brain was fascinated by the implications. So many of his scars should have been lethal death sentences, but Madara still moved so fluidly.

Down below a collection of Uchiha and Sunagakure onlookers gathered to watch. Sakura could see Gaara standing next to his sister Temari but Kankuro was nowhere to be found. 

There were more Uchiha leaning out to watch but Sakura knew only half of their names. 

Madara moved first. Sasori countered flawlessly and the first few exchanges were textbook perfect, but then Madara turned ferocious, screaming as he pressed his attack with more and more energy. Sasori kept his energy in reserves until at one point when he started to surge against Madara, but instead of flagging Madara roared even louder and met Sasori with enthusiasm. 

There it was, his legendary stamina. His relatives boasted of their clan leader lasting three whole days on a battlefield without sleep. 

All men had limits, but according to the younger Sasuke Uchiha, their fearless leader was no such man. 

It was almost unnerving to watch how Madara powered through his stances and moves, never once flagging. It was like watching a storm and knowing you could never outrun it. 

_‘It’s hard to doubt it now that he was one of the two who changed the bead’s color,’_ Sakura thought morbidly. 

Madara was too much of a monster to _not_ be one of the two souls that triggered a reaction on Chiyo’s charms. Sakura had hoped she might make it her whole life without running into the souls of the monsters who had been chasing her spirit through lifetimes. Watching Madara move, she knew it was a foolish hope. 

But who was the other? 

Sasori’s sword was sent flying through the air, arching high overhead before spinning into the dirt and sinking blade first with a dull _thunk_ sound. The youngest Uchiha in the company, a boy named Sasuke. Cheered loudly from the sidelines while the other brothers calmly congratulated their elder. 

Gaara ran out to greet Sasori while Temari hung back. Sasori was known to have a temper but it looked like Gaara was the only one he didn’t fly off the handle at. The elder redhead breathed heavily and reached for his sword, shouldering past Gaara and storming off the field. 

“Such good sportsmanship,” Sasuke scoffed from under the overhang. He was close enough that Sakura could hear him and his brothers converse.

“Be mindful of your tone, little brother,” Itachi sighed while the other one called Shisui laughed. 

“Izuna should have seen it. Why is he still stuck inside, it’s so nice out?” Sasuke whined. 

“Don’t bother worrying about him,” Madara said, tone as gruff as ever as he approached his brothers on the walkway. He cast his eyes up and caught Sakura’s in a gaze as strong as iron. It was enough to stop her breath for a handful of seconds before Sasuke ran out to grab the arm of his eldest brother and laugh childishly.

Sakura felt her lip curl on its own when she heard his boasting of Uchiha superiority.

“Shut up!” 

Sakura turned to see Gaara step out from under the walkway and onto the dirt courtyard. His cheeks were colored with embarrassment and his eyes were glassy with unshed tears. He looked far too young in that moment and the edges of Sakura’s hard heart felt soft. 

Itachi frowned down at his younger brother and opened his mouth to address Sasuke, but was too slow.

“I’m not sure if you saw the same thing as me or not but my brother kicked ass. Serves that boaster right if he wants to go off about how great of a fighter he is.”

“My cousin fought admirably,” Gaara snapped.

“He did indeed-” Itachi tried to interject.

Key word: tried.

“Still lost like a bitch with no balls.”

Gaara’s face was red. “Say that with your sword instead of hiding behind your brother’s shadow you-you chicken faced bastard. You Uchiha aren't worth my spit.”

“You think I won’t?” Sasuke taunted. 

Gaara took a step but didn’t get any further. Sakura had vaulted over the edge of the roof and dropped down in front of her cousin, kicking up dust enough to cloud over Gaara’s sandals. She held up a hand to keep Gaara back but stood facing Sasuke. 

“Sasuke san, please forgive my cousin. He spoke poorly of your family and we apologize,” Sakura said, straightening to stand in front of Gaara. 

Behind her Sakura could hear the strangled sort of noise Gaara hid in his throat while all the other Uchiha watched. Sakura reached back to take his hand but he didn’t budge. 

“Heh, at least one of you isn’t blind and knows how to use their manners,” Sasuke scoffed.

“Thank you Haruno kun,” Itachi said, stepping forward. “Sasuke kun also was too passionate with his rival. I’m sure such insults are not worth remembering.”

“Of course. It was wrong to insult your whole clan, but my cousin did not misspeak in identifying your younger brother as a chicken shit.” 

There was a stale silence as several different brains processed her words. Sakura didn’t so much as blink while watching the Uchiha members. Itachi looked stunned while Sasuke’s face colored in anger. Behind him Shisui seemed far too delighted while Madara watched with an unchanging expression. 

“You…” Sasuke seethed. 

Behind her, Sakura could feel Gaara take her hand. 

“It’s a sign of the youth to cry loudly without thinking, so please allow this bitch with no balls to educate her inferior in her cousin’s place.” Sakura paused to incline her chin and stare down her nose at Sasuke with darkly hooded eyes. “If he is not too scared to dance in the dust.” 

Shisui barked out a laugh before covering his mouth. Beside him Itachi sighed and Madara watched on keenly with no change to his expression. Sasuke, on the other hand, surged forward. 

“Take your place on the field you bitch!” Sasuke took a handful of steps before spinning back around. “Where are my swords?” 

“Not necessary,” Sakura called out. 

She measured her paces and stopped at the appropriate spot before rolling back her shoulders. The dark green haori slid down to her wrists where she caught it before throwing it to Gaara. That left her in her trousers and skintight undershirt that showed off much of her back for how it wrapped around her neck. 

She stretched her arms out and then adopted a familiar stance. “I’ll teach you with my hands, boy.” 

“I’ll mess your face up if we fight with our fists, girl,” Sasuke said, walking to his spot across from her. 

“No Sasuke, not the face! I want to look at Sakura chan forever!” Shisui called playfully from the sidelines until Itachi smacked him from behind. 

“Brace yourself like a man then and see if you can,” Sakura shouted before stomping one foot and kicking up dust. Sasuke mimicked her stance and stomped the same way. 

“Fight!” 

Sasuke charged first, as hot headed as the fire printed on his patterned jinbei-styled kimono and black pants. He was easy to catch and divert. Sakura sent him stumbling as she readjusted her stance and held her position. 

Predictably Sasuke came for her again. 

His form was strong and his moves were textbook. When he swung and reached for her Sakura felt the way wind rushed to get out of his way and suspected he was stronger than he looked. But that was okay. 

So was she.

She surged with intent and it was enough to set Sasuke off his pace before Sakura reached his throat. He went down and she threw him over herself, rolling into the dirt. He tried to reach back for her but she countered, grabbing him first and tackling him down to the ground. He tried to counter but she adjusted and held him down until he screamed. 

Sakura let him go before he could hurt himself but rolled free of his wild jabs. She recovered quicker, flipping forward to chase after Sasuke’s retreat. She caught his heel and he tried to kick but Sakura pulled hard and the rest of his body followed. Someone whooped from the sidelines as Sakura threw Sasuke up over her by his ankles and then slammed him down into the ground. 

Someone new was laughing while someone who sounded too much like Itachi to be anyone else cried out in alarm. 

Sasuke lay in the dust with his eyes to the sky and his mouth frozen open. All the breath in his lungs was gone and he was stunned on his back in the dirt. 

“Sasuke!” 

Sakura didn’t move from where she stood as Itachi rushed past her to collect his brother. On the walkway Gaara was watching her with bright eyes but he wasn’t the only one. 

Why the hell did Madara Uchiha’s eyes look red in the shadows?

“It’s not an honor, it's just more work for me,” Sakura grumbled to Gaara while wrapping his arm. He had been practicing the bow incorrectly again and ended up bruising the inside of his wrist and arm. 

“Sasori thinks highly of you,” Gaara insisted. 

“That’s nice.”

“It is!”

Sakura sighed, dropping his arm to stand up and wash the gunk off her hands. “Fine, I’m sure you’re right and I just don’t have the brains to comprehend it, but being his lackey on a hunt is not my idea of a good time. It sounds like work, it feels like work, but they’re making me go on my off day so it is worse than work.” 

Gaara paused, watching his cousin wash her hands before responding. “... But...Sasuke didn’t get invited.”

“He is the last person on the face of this earth that I care about. He still hasn’t apologized to you, has he?” 

“Which makes it all the sweeter when he gets left out of these things,” Gaara said. “And you should be the one he apologizes to first. He insulted you right before he got his ass handed to him.” 

“Honestly, that was fun enough so I’m not even mad about him holding out on me. He can keep his apology, I’ll take the satisfaction of my victory.” Sakura shook her hands free and dried them thoroughly before turning back around.”Who else is going?” 

“You mean apart from Sasori and Temari? Madara, maybe Izuna-”

“Izuna? He’s sickly. What is he thinking by going on a hunt with his brother right now. Is his personal physician for appearances only? What a headache.”

Gaara chuckled shyly. “Izuna and Shisui. Three each plus the servants. That or maybe Itachi. I'm not sure.”

“I’d rather sleep in all morning.”

“I’ve never seen you sleep in.”

“And you never will because I have to get up early and go out with this stupid hunting party on my day off,” Sakura complained. 

“It’s not that bad.”

“The company makes it unbearable,” Sakura said. “If Izuna and Shisui are going to be there I’m not sure who is worse to be caught around; our cousin or _those_ two.”

Gaara made a face. “You make it sound like cousin Sasori is so bad.”

“He is a tad on the immature side but I can’t blame him entirely for that. It is in the nature of princes to be spoiled when they are spoiled. Ebizō sama was too soft on him,” Sakura said.

“You only say that because you were raised by Chiyo sama,” Gaara replied.

Sakura gasped in quiet delight, eyes going wide as she turned to stare at gaara. “Did you just back sass me, little cousin,” Sakura teased. Her grin only grew as Gaara flustered under the direct attention. 

“No! It was a fact, don’t look at me like that.”

“You’re so cute when you think you’re being sassy,” Sakura teased, flustering Gaara further. 

Neither noticed or cared who listened in just outside the door. Sakura might have seen the shadow but didn’t care to consider who it might belong to in the absence of any killing intent. Watching to see how red she could get Gaara was far more interesting. 

The next morning Sakura forced herself to rise early and dress for the hunt. Ebizō sama had plenty of forested land and was generous with opening it up to his friends and allies the Uchiha. Somehow the generous offer turned into a subtle contest of skills with two groups looking to see who could bring back more meat. 

Temari was already out and mostly ready by the time Sakura arrived at the stables. All three of their horses had already been saddled and fed while the Uchiha kept to themselves until the time of departure. 

“You look a tad too tired to be the barker,” Temari teased. 

“I’m not sure why Sasori needed me to run ahead and scare the wildlife into running for him. Can’t you people kill your wildlife the way poor people do it?” 

“And how is that?” Temari asked. 

“Quietly and alone,” Sakura mumbled. 

Sakura rounded her horse and fingered the feathered ends of the arrows already collected into her saddle’s quiver. They were fine high quality hawk and would surely make her shots sing. 

With her fingers trailing down her horse’s back Sakura let her hazy mind wander. She was still too tired to move like she cared, but that was only half the reason for lethargy. Her dreams had turned for the worse again. 

The first night at Ebizō sama’s castle she had slept through the worst of it, but since that initial nice most of her sleeps had been comparatively peaceful. What made them so terrible had to be how vivid they had become. 

She had dreamed of dragons and death for as long as she could remember, and Chiyo warned her that it was because of all her past lives. Now the dreams _smelled_ enough to make her want to vomit when she woke. She could taste blood in her mouth and feel the places on her body where wounds would have dug straight through her. 

And the eyes….

Red eyes on a two headed dragon….

Would she ever be free of this curse? 

The crunch of gravel was enough warning for her to pick her head up in time and try not to look half dead before Sasori came out to claim his horse. He called out to Temari who was already standing in the center of the yard, but Sakura didn’t bother to try and hear what he was saying. It sounded almost like Temari was teasing her cousin. The two sounded close. 

Sakura looked up when she heard the new bodies and saw three dressed up Uchiha plus Izuna who trailed along in his loose robes and an expression of displeasure. Next to Madara Shisui adjusted himself in the saddle and Itachi looked on ahead, ignoring all others. 

“You’re punctual,” Shisui cheered loudly, looking far too awake for the unholy hour. His cheerful tone only soured Sakura’s mood further. Sakura wanted to dig up the dirt and bury herself in the earth if that meant she could sleep another hour. 

“It is late enough, we can depart now,” Sasori said. He reached for his horse and pulled himself up, glancing over the saddle at Sakura before pulling himself up. That was her cue, so Sakura mounted and settled herself in the saddle. 

“Bring back some pig at least,” Izuna sighed, sounding bitter. 

“You should be inside resting,” Itachi softly encouraged.

Izuna’s expression only darkened. “I don’t need to hear that from you, little brother.”

Madara waved off Itachi’s attempts to comfort their brother. “Don’t mind him. If he wants to be a child about it he’s free to his poor choices. We will bring back whatever we find, don’t be picky.” 

“Don’t be an asshole,” Izuna snapped back with an overly fake smile. 

“We’re ready to go,” Madara said, addressing Sasori while ignoring his closest brother. Behind him Izuna made a gesture with his hand that got Temari to snicker. 

Sasori didn’t stop to waste words but instead urged his horse on and Sakura fell into step behind him, watching his hands for whenever she needed to run off ahead and agitate the wildlife. Shisui shouted his farewells to Izuna but Itachi kept his head ducked and his mouth shut. 

Sakura tried to be good, but she glanced back once and saw the broken way Izuna watched his brothers ride off without him. 

The first couple of hours were idle as the group trekked through the woods in search of tracks and marks of disturbance in the underbrush. Sakura was sent out once or twice when they thought they were close, but there was nothing waiting in the near clearning when she surged ahead. 

They broke up for an early lunch and then set off again as the noon day sun started to peak. 

Somehow Sakura ended up separated from the rest of the group. She had disturbed something that went racing out in a wild daze. It looked like some type of boar that Temari and Sasori were all too eager to chase with their arrows and mounts. 

Sakura tried to follow the sound of their disturbance in the forest but something was off about how unnaturally quiet everything went. The hairs on the back of her neck started to stand up and Sakura dismounted to draw one of her two swords. 

Whatever was nearby wasn’t a natural part of the forest. 

“Hold.” 

Sakura spun with her sword ready but didn’t swing when she saw him. Madara stood between two ancient trees and in the shade his dark looked all the more red. 

Even though she knew him Sakura didn’t lower her sword. “Madara san...are you lost?”

He was out of range and stayed there with both hands empty, watching her with eyes so dark they looked red. It was a moment more before he inhaled to speak.

“Do you ever dream of me?” 

Sakura almost faltered. 

“Excuse me?” 

Madara took a single step out of the trees and the shade fell off his face, leaving his eyes as black as night. He didn’t seem to mind the fact that Sakura still held up her sword or even that she had it in hand. 

“Don’t you dream of horrible things, of death and dragons?” 

The tip of Sakura’s sword fell down and she let her arm swing loose. Like a veil had been lifted suddenly Sakura remembered the shape of his face, the color of his eyes, the timber of his voice in lifetime after lifetime. She remembered him all the way back to the beginning. 

_“You will be cursed. No bloodline will save you from that. You will die here on our mountain and we will haunt all your lifetimes forever more.”_

_Sakura bent her head, pressing her forehead to its side before kissing his scales. “Noble lords, it is more than I deserve. Thank you for saving my family.”_

_The Zmey doesn’t speak again and Sakura pulls the heart free from inside its chest and then takes one in either hand to crush. The burst like overripe fruit and she feels them burn in between her fingers. When she looks down at her hands again they are drenched in deep read and a heartstring dangles from either hand, caught between her fingers._

Sakura looked down at his hands and then at hers, turning over her wrist so the scar around her pinky stood out. Nearly a hundred lifetimes later there was still evidence of her original sin. 

“You…” she felt like her voice didn’t match her body anymore. “What did you do?” 

“I’ve done many things. I’ve cursed you, hated you, hunted you, loved you, mourned you, missed you, killed you...” Madara took another step. “...and it is never enough. You were always just,” he extended his hand and reached for the loose strand of hair that fell out of her braid and in front of her eyes. He took it between his fingers gingerly before letting it slip free like a snake between cracks. “...out of reach.”

“What do you want this lifetime?” Sakura asked, feeling her voice in her bones like a separate part of her. She felt so disjointed and unnerved. 

“If you’ll let me, it’s my hope to put an end to our tragedy.” 

Sakura adjusted the fur around her collar and slipped out of her room. It was late and the chill was cutting, but darkness was necessary to avoid eyes and questions. 

She knew the steps by heart even in the dark so it wasn’t an issue to get from one point to the next, but it was slow work since she had to take extra care to move without being seen or heard. As much as they wanted to believe they were above others opinions there would be consequences if she got caught. 

The lights were off so when she rolled back the screen door and slipped in there was no one who would see her enter. Once the wood frame rolled back into place and latched a lantern burned low, flooding the room in soft light. 

Madara knelt on the floor next to the lantern and Izuna stood on the other side of the low table, seemingly frozen in place as his wide black eyes swallowed her up. They had spoken before, many times, and he saw her nearly every day since she came to live with Ebizō, but something had shifted between them as he regarded her anew. 

He knew she remembered him now. 

“Oh,” he breathed in the softest of voices. “You’re here.” 

“Should I be somewhere else?” Sakura asked, tugging loose the fur around her neck but removing nothing as she crouched beside the table.

Izuna followed her down, tucking in the ends of his robes as he sat. Madara moved away from the lamp and lounged more casually from his side of the table. Gathered together around the short table in the soft light everything looked different. 

“I’m glad you decided to come. I didn’t think you would. You’ve...we’ve never talked like this before in any of our lifetimes,” Izuna nervously laughed. “This is very new for us.” 

“Do you remember all your lifetimes?” Sakura asked.

“Mostly,” Madara answered while Izuna rolled his eyes. 

“We remember a great deal but to be fair, there is no way for us to know if we remember everything. For all we know there have been lifetimes lived where we never meet and lifetimes when we never survive childhood. There are some gaps in history when we don’t reincarnate for a decade or even half a century, but we figured that might be because of the link between all three of us.” 

Sakura pulled her hands out of her lap and set them on the table, turning over her wrists so the scar marks on her left and right pink could be seen. Madara didn’t move but Izuna leaned forward. 

“I was born with these, they’re not burns like the other ones. Chiyo said they were curses,” Sakura said. “I had hope to one day lift this curse, but if it is as old as you say, I don’t know how that might be possible.”

“It’s not,” Izuna sighed. “You crushed our hearts in your hands and died for it, so this curse stains your very soul, but we think there might be a way to lighten the darkness.” 

“To clarify,” Madara interjected, leaning forward, “We’re not interested in severing our connection, only removing the bad luck from your fate.” 

“You think I have bad luck?” Sakura scoffed. 

“You have terrible luck,” Madara scoffed with only a hint of affection tucked in the corner of his smile. 

“Some of the worst,” Izuna agreed. “In most of your lifetimes you are orphaned or born to cruel and terrible parents. You’re often poor, born into squalor to start. You never live long. Sometimes you die later and sometimes you die earlier, but you’ve never made it to thirty.” 

“That’s terrible but not surprising,” Sakura said, glancing down at her hands again. “Chiyo knew what she was doing when she taught me the sword. Hired swords don’t live long lives typically.”

“That’s another similarity, you’ve always been a fierce spirit. Sometimes you’re a soldier, sometimes a fighter, sometimes you’re just sharp with your words, but you’re always... spirited,” Madara said. 

Sakura rolled his words over in her head and slowly nodded as they felt more true. ‘Spirited’ was a term a bit too on the nose, but what he said made sense. Who she was when everything else was stripped away, when her family, when her experiences, when her scars and burns were all subtracted, she was still something. In her dreams she had held too many weapons to not recognize their weight. 

“In these lifetimes, or at least the ones I remember,” Sakura began, “we are not always friends.”

“That’s a nice way to say it,” Izuna sighed before reaching for the sake set that was set up where the tea should have been. Madara didn’t say anything until his brother had finished pouring for all three of them. 

Sakura took her dish and nodded to the brother before dipping down her first drink. Izuna was quick to refill her dish and then Madara’s before addressing his own. Sakura nursed her second drink while Madara didn’t hesitate. 

A little while later all their tongues were a bit looser and the truth flowed free. 

“Hated you at first,” Madara said on his fourth cup. “You killed us and we went from divine beasts to decaying flesh bags. Humans are...so fragile and pitiful, even when they’re royalty.”

“I’m not sure I can blame you,” Sakura answered, watching the low light reflected in the ripples of her drink. “When I dream I can sometimes smell that day, the burning of it at least.” 

Izuna watched her with heavy eyes as Sakura tipped her cup back and drank deeply. When he tried to pour a new dish for her she waved him off, pushing the empty dish away. With her empty hands she rubbed at her face, digging the heels of her palms over her eyes like that would help remove the images burned behind her lids.

“Do you remember why you did it?” Madara asked while Izuna just watched. 

“The people who raised me were starving...or there was a sickness...there was nothing else I could do that would save them all.” Sakura kept her hands over her eyes. “I knew what I was doing. I knew I would be cursed. It’s not because I didn’t believe them. I don’t remember a lot or know as much as you, but I know that.” 

“That’s accurate. You acted for the benefit of humans you weren't even related to. As gods we had no basis for comprehending such selfishness. We couldn’t even understand the concept of hunger until we became human, and even then…” Madara looked up from his drink across the table at his brother and then drowned the rest of his words in sake. 

“You don’t sound like you bear me the ill will I thought you would,” Sakura said. “I’m not sure what I should do with that.”

“How so?” Izuna asked in a quiet voice. 

“I’m not sure I could forgive me if I were in your shoes. My sin is greater than just murder. I killed a people’s god.”

“Do you regret it?” Madara asked.

Sakura thought it over before she opened her mouth. “If I could go back and do it over again… I would still do it for them if there was no other way.”

Madara chuckled and it sounded like a distant roll of thunder from deep in his chest. “What if I were to tell you that your sacrifice was for nothing? They all still died. Yes, our scales bought them food and medicine. They lived another twenty or thirty years before old age or wild neighbors killed them off. None of them lived forever. How was it still worth it?” 

“Have you never loved someone in all your lives, Madara?” Sakura asked without bothering to address him formally. “What is so great about godhood if you can’t even love?” 

Madara didn’t blink and Sakura didn’t back down as she met his eyes dead on. In the soft light it was easier to see how his black eyes could be mistaken for red. She felt like she was staring at embers when she looked at him. Something in the way he didn’t divert his attention made her heart squeeze in her chest and bloom with warm feelings. 

Madara lowered his head first and looked down to her hands, specifically the scar on her finger that was leftover from his ancient heart. 

“There’s no use to it,” Izuna interjected. He reached across the table to fill Madara’s cup once more with some of the last of the sake. “We’re done being foolish and hating you for it, Sakura.”

“What does that mean for us now? You said I wasn’t going to live past my thirties.” 

“We’ve been working on that,” Madara grumbled before taking a generous sip of his sake. 

He set what was left on the edge of the table and then reached for Sakura’s neck. Sakura didn’t pull away when he tugged at the cord under her fur collar. Sakura pulled free the string so that the two glass beads were visible. Their color hadn’t changed since their initial changing upon her meeting of Izuna and Madara so many weeks ago. They were now as black as either Uchiha’s eyes. 

“They’re collecting our fate for you,” Izuna sighed in what sounded like relief. “That means it’s working this time.”

“What’s working?” Sakura asked. 

Madara returned to his drink while Izuna scooted closer and reached for one of the beads. “In each lifetime our fates are criminally unbalanced. My brother and I are often princes or kings. You’re always born into the lowest class or close to it. That’s the design of fate, but we’ve been rewriting that since you were born this time with redistribution.”

Something felt unsettled deep in her heart. “Redistribution...how so?” 

Izuna rolled one of the glass beads between his fingers. “We’re still born with grace and power, but we’ve made sacrifices to balance the scales a little. My lungs, Madara’s legacy....you have our grace here and that should be enough to keep you by our side.”

“How did you accomplish that?” Sakura breathed.

“Magic,” Madara chuckled. “Old languages and words of power, the way people adapt the things they can’t understand are as varied as the stars, but it’s all the same force of creation that screamed this world into existence.

“Yet, we remember it in shadows,” Izuna sighed, dropping the bead from between his fingers so it fell back against Sakura’s fur collar. “This is the limit of our abilities thus far.” 

“It’s more than I deserve.” Sakura touched the beads and felt the heat from where Izuna had held it slowly fade only to miss it. 

“You’ve paid for your sins ten times over. Now it is time for the tides of fate to favor you a little more. We have no use for crowns if all our palaces are as empty as our hearts,” Izuna said. “At least this time, let us indulge you.” 

“So I don’t die before I’m thirty?” 

“Among other things,” Izuna answered. 

Madara knocked back the rest of his drink and then stood. He reached for Sakura and helped her up, eying Izuna. “It’s late, you should head back for now but we’ll talk again.”

“That-brother,” Izuna hissed, scrambling to stand. “We were going to tell her the rest of it.”

“The rest of what?” Sakura asked, planting herself where she stood. Madara could overpower her and remove her by force still, but it wouldn’t be easy and she wouldn’t go willingly.

“To keep you safe, the plan we had for that,” Izuna went on. “We would ask Ebizō if I could marry you under the pretext of solidifying this alliance.”

Sakura almost lost her footing on nothing as some of the feeling left her legs. Madara was right behind her and he moved up to lay both his hands on her shoulders to stead her while protecting her back.

“Marriage?” Sakura looked between Izuna and then up at Madara before looking back at Izuna. Madara seemed buzzed and tired but Izuna was awake and sober enough. “Where did that come from?” 

“It’s the best decision since Madara can’t have children, it would still come across as an insult if he proposed, but I’m weak and the Uchiha want to see me with a wife by now since I have no heir,” Izuna calmly explained. 

With her back to Madara’s chest Sakura had nowhere to go when Izuna closed the distance between them and reached for her chin. He ran the tips of his fingers and then his knuckles up the side of her face before brushing his thumb over her lips. His touch was like a ghost’s and Sakura almost didn’t believe in it. 

“Why would you-still, marriage is a bit drastic don’t you think?” Sakura breathed. Her knees still felt like traitors and she wasn’t confident she’d stay standing if Madara moved away from her. 

“The only thing drastic is how long it’s taken us to understand this feeling,” Izuna explained. 

Sakura stiffened when she felt the lips on the back of her neck. Madara had reached down to kill the base of her skull while one of his hands strayed to her hip. “And how long,” he breathed over her neck, “it’s taken to catch you like this.”

Izuna grabbed one of her hands and pulled it to his lips to kiss, reverently touching his teeth to her pinky’s scar while his other hand stayed under her jaw. She thought she felt him whisper something against the mark but couldn’t be sure of anything while her brain overheated. 

“Understand what we feel, Sakura,” Izuna whispered a little louder over her fingers. “In every lifetime, in every country, in every world where our fates entangle, you are the only thing worth living for.”

Madara growled low against the back of her skull and Sakura felt the vibrations through the places where they were connected. “You humans call this love.”

“Yes, we love you Sakura. We’ve loved you for lifetimes now. Pity us for we know of no other way to express it to you. I-we’ve been starving for this-for you.” Izuna closed his eyes and kissed her fingers again. 

“Wa-wait-wait,” Sakura gasped, stumbling against Madara only to be caught by him around the waist and kept upright. “This is sudden for me-I haven’-I-I don’t-I don’t know what to say right now. I-”

Izuna took a step back and raised both hands. He smiled wide enough for the corners of his eyes to crease with honest affection. He chuckled while Madara straightened behind her and backed up enough that he could still catch her if she stumbled. 

“You’ve not taken a lover during this lifetime either?” Izuna guessed in an overly sweet tone. 

“You’re nervous,” Madara chimed in. 

“No need for that, but we understand,” Izuna cheered. “I’m a fantastic lover and I don’t mind sharing you with my brother who is like the other half of my soul, so you don’t need to worry about our feelings.”

Sakura’s face felt too hot to be wearing furs, but she didn’t dare move them away lest they see how colored her cheeks really were. It wasn’t fair how easily they had unsettled her. She thought she was mentally stronger than this! 

“Wait,” she breathed out. “Let me...let me think this over. Marriage is a bit much for right now. I don’t-I didn’t think that would be an-that it would be something for a person like me.” 

Izuna chuckled and it sounded almost cynical as he hid his smile behind his hand and stared over his shoulder at the far wall where there was another door. “My dear, you are too precious for us right now. We might have unsettled you with how soon we shared this with you, but it was necessary since hearing rumors of that brat’s intentions.”

“Brat’s intentions?” Sakura echoed.

“Sasori. Ebizō thought it would be good to pair the both of you up and fold you into the family in a more formal way. The asshole didn’t oppose it from what we heard, but he’s not worthy for how poorly he tries to woo you.”

“I don’t think Sasori was trying to woo me,” Sakura scoffed. “He’s horrible to my face.” 

“That’s because the asshole is an asshole,” Madara explained before yawning into his fist. 

“He’s a twisted bastard that doesn’t know how to express affection,” Izuna explained. “That’s why he dragged you out hunting today. He made Gaara skip so you could take the empty slot on his team.”

Madara chuckled. “You didn’t even notice him watching you?”

“I thought he was glaring at me because he hated me,” Sakura rushed to explain as her face colored once more. “He was only ever mean to me.” 

“Brat doesn’t know how to flirt,” Izuna laughed. 

“It isn’t something you need to worry about,” Madara said touching her shoulder with only the tips of his fingers, as if hesitant to make contact. “It’s late.” 

“I should head back,” Sakura said. She glanced backwards at the screen door and then ducked her face into the fur of her collar. “I have too much to think about now.”

“You should rest,” Izuna said. “In the morning we’ll share our interests with Ebizō and offer to seize the Nara’s lands as a bridal gift. He won’t deny us then.” 

“The Akimichi won’t take that laying down, they protect the Nara and the Yamanaka clans like their own,” Sakura expressed. “That’s a three tier clan.”

“I’ve already subdued the Yamanaka fools,” Izuna chuckled. “We can overpower the Nara and then Akimichi if we wipe out the Nara strategists first. Without the Nara, the Akimichi will fall to our might. We are Uchiha, remember?”

“Could I ever forget?” Sakura asked with a hint of almost sarcasm. It got both Madara and Izuna to laugh or chuckle in their own ways. 

Madara tapped her shoulder again and then drew back. “Go back tonight. Sleep.”

“Yes,” Izuna said with a knowing smile. “You have much to dream about now.”

And it was like a prophecy because when Sakura settled down in her bed the dreams that filled her mind were of pretty eyes and soft lips finding her pulse points all over her skin. When she woke in the morning she felt an absence in her chest she knew the shape of. 

She wanted to be held and believe in their love for her.

When she returned from her work with Ebizō’s men there was someone sent to summon her in for a meeting with Chiyo’s brother. 

Ebizō took her company from the shade of his favorite gazebo, the one that overlooked the garden pond. He reclined against a low table and drank tea that had grown cold. 

“Ebizō sama?” Sakura called, kneeling at the entrance to his gazebo. “You summoned me here.”

“I was hoping...when you came you would call me informally, like I’m sure you did with my sister,” he chuckled without turning around to face her. Slowly, he braced against the table and rotated his body away from the waters to face her. “I’m sure you were as brash with her as she was with me and anyone else she knew. I miss that. No one forgets to respect this old man.”

Sakura hesitated before standing out of her bow. “Will you throw me out if I call you old man?”

“Only if you don’t want to but do it to appease this old man,” he chuckled. His face was heavy with wrinkles that made every expression soft. He was different from Chiyo in that way. Chiyo had been old and wrinkled, but she had never been soft. 

“I won’t make any promises. You called for me. What can I do for you?” 

Ebizō nodded slowly, remembering his business with you. “Take a seat. The tea is cold but there are treats here I think. Please help yourself. I...spoke with the Uchiha Izuna and Madara this morning and thought over their words all this time.”

“What did they tell you?” Sakura asked while she folded her legs under her to sit at the low table. She didn’t reach for any of the treats but instead kept her hands folded and out of sight. 

What were the chances he knew what her scars meant? 

“They wanted to establish a marriage. It disturbed some of my pre-existing plans but I’m not sure if that is a good enough reason to reject them. I am unable to make this decision alone.” 

Sakura stared down at her hands in her lap and felt the heartstring marks itch. “Is the reason you called for me because this proposal involves me in some way?”

“Madara wanted you to marry his brother Izuna, but I have my reservations about his health.”

“What...were your pre-existing plans that were disturbed?” Sakura asked. 

“My grandson Sasori had been fond of you for a while. Before you even came here he had been weaned on your stories. Chiyo was a god in his childhood and he had been looking forward to meeting her apprentice all this time. The second coming of the mistress of the black hounds was quite the story in our castle.” 

The ‘black hounds’ were Chiyo’s two black swords as well as the symbol she wore on her armor to distinguish herself on the battlefield. Sakura had inherited both the swords and the moniker but she hadn’t known news of her had traveled outside of the Senju territories.

“Sasori hasn’t said anything to me in regards to that,” Sakura carefully answered. 

“He wouldn’t,” Ebizō laughed. “He’s a boy of many faults and that is one of them. It seems he did not learn in time. I thought maybe you would be a good match since you’re the only thing he speaks of during our tea times, but if he could not win you I would not force a partnership.”

“You’re asking me what I think?” Sakura asked. 

“Could you turn your heart towards my pitiful grandson, or has it already turned elsewhere?” Ebizō asked with a look that betrayed his age. His gaze was clear and focused, pinning her in place. 

“When did the Uchiha say they would leave to claim land for you?” Sakura asked instead. 

“Why would you want to know, grandchild.” 

_“Understand what we feel, Sakura,” Izuna whispered a little louder over her fingers. “In every lifetime, in every country, in every world where our fates entangle, you are the only thing worth living for.”_

_Madara growled lowly against the back of her skull and Sakura felt the vibrations through the places where they were connected. “You humans call this love.”_

“I am not a prize to be won. I will make my own fate with these two hands of mine. I will stand on the field beside them and win my happiness with Chiyo’s swords.” 

Ebizō looked her over, keen eyes soaking every detail of her expression until he found something that caused him to shift. “Ah,” he said. “I can see what she was so drawn to. My poor grandson will have to learn how to heal his own heart this time. The Uchiha have already left. You may be able to overtake them before nightfall if you knew where they were going.”

“Do I have your permission to leave, Ebizō sama?” 

“I almost want to say no to see what you will say.” 

Sakura smirked and stood, bracing on hand on her hip to stare down at the seated elder. “I wouldn’t waste my time saying much of anything, old man. I’d just take my swords and set out on my own without your blessing. Don’t think you own me just because you pay me.” 

Ebizō cackled and then doubled over the table laughing as Sakura jogged away from the pavilion and towards the stables. She saw one of the stable hands and yelled at him to saddle her horse and have him ready for immediate departure. 

She ran to her room and flew to don her armor, tying up her hair and knotting it to keep it out of her face before fitting her helmet in place. She strapped Chiyo’s swords to her side and then scrambled to fill a bag for travel. 

She straightened when she heard a knock on the doorframe. 

“Gaara?”

The redhead stood in the open doorway with saddlebags already filled with food and water. “I heard you calling out for a horse and figured you might need these.” 

Sakura felt a throb in her heart for Gaara. He had looked up to Sasori and would be hurt if he knew what she was racing towards. Hadn’t he wanted better for his favorite cousin? 

“Gaara, I-thank you but you don’t even know where I’m going or why.” 

“I don’t know where, but Ebizō sama told me why he was laughing so hard he ended up crying. I won’t blame you for following your heart. I wish more people could be so strong.” Gaara glanced down at his hands around the saddlebags. “And besides, I could never forget how you stood up for me. You’re the bravest person I know.” 

Sakura reached for her cousin and pulled his head close to kiss at his hairline. “I adore you, cousin, thank you.”

Gaara swallowed loudly and nodded before reaching to pull her into a hug. “Please come back safely,” he whispered.

She kissed him again and then made for the stables where her horse was already prepared and waiting. Sakura added the saddlebags and pulled herself up onto the horse’s back. She turned around to glance back but took off before she could see who was around to watch her leave. 

She rode hard for most of the first day, gaining ground on the group that had moved out hours earlier, but when nightfall came she had to make camp and sleep long enough for her horse to recover its strength. 

In her dreams there was nothing but the dull ache of want and a tugging in both her hands.

On the second day she lost time on the road because of highwaymen she couldn’t intimidate with only herself. The time she lost was more precious than the blood, but she didn’t stop. 

On the third day she set out before the sun could finish leaving the horizon and saw their white tents on the hills. They were amassing their numbers for a frontal assault on the Nara settlements, out-weaseling the most weasel minded of the neighboring clans. The Nara were brilliant but they were not strong. If they were tackled before they could join a stronger clan they would be no great threat. 

They were so close now. She could see them. She saw them on their mounts in their armor with their swords in the air, screaming like dragons for war before charging. 

Sakura crested the hill into the valley and raced up its far slope to join the tail end of the Uchiha’s footmen charge, coming up last. 

On her horse she ran through the armies, neither side knowing if she was a friend or ally yet. She was in all red armor while the Nara donned forest green and the Uchiha clad themselves in pitch colored plates. 

Sakura cut through their masses like a wound, cleaving her way to the front with both swords. She didn’t stop to think of morality or virtue as she cut into the neck of a Nara soldier who probably didn’t deserve her blades. 

Madara and Izuna were there, ahead of her, at the front, and she had waited too many lifetimes to not be beside them. 

“Sakura!” Izuna faltered at the sight of her but Shisui was at his side cutting down their enemies. 

Sakura surged on her mount and held on by the strength of her thighs to lean far out and behead one more of Izuna’s enemies. Her swords were dripping gore and blood but she righted herself and swung them sharply to free their lengths of grime. 

“I never gave you my answer!” Sakura yelled over the din of battle. 

“We told you we would wait!” 

“I never agreed to that,” Sakura roared before flipping off her saddle to miss a strike aimed at her thigh. It bounced harmlessly off her horse’s armored saddle and gave her the opening she needed to cut through half of the man’s neck.

“What are you doing?” Izuna yelled, struggling to reach her through the bodies.” 

“Earning my place,” Sakura screamed back. “I won’t have you two be the only ones who strive for what you want. I have two hands, don’t I?” 

He screamed her name again and she caught the sword of her enemy with the hilt of hers before she could lose her neck to its swing. With a grunt she pushed her attacker off with one sword and then slashed through his armor with the other. 

“I make my own fate,” Sakura gasped, struggling to breath through all her adrenaline.

She paused to gasp and saw someone running for her but Madara’s mass cut into her line of vision and swung his war fan with a deafening boom that rolled across the fields like thunder. The gumbai-uchiwa raised high, dripping gore just like her swords before Madara swung it sharply and cleaned it in the air. 

“You will not fight alone today,” Madara said, speaking as if there wasn’t a deafening din of war themed clamor to drown out his words. Sakua still managed to hear him clearly, like his voice was in her head already.

“I’ve made my choice,” Sakura shouted back to the both of them.

Madara’s smile didn’t suit the setting. He was dirty and splattered with blood while Izuna was disheveled with sweat and the same red splatters. Still, the brothers watched her with matching expressions of unfiltered adoration. 

Sakura didn’t say anything more but threw herself into the fight. The old seal from her dead birth mother started to bloom on her forehead and she screamed as it burned with new energy. With all the leftover magic of the long dead Senju clan, Sakura cut through her enemies with old magic and Chiyo’s blessed swords. She was a juggernaut on the field, refusing to fall as long as both Uchiha still battled. 

The tide of war never turned against them and the Nara were no match for the Uchiha or Sakura. Their retreat was messier than their battle efforts and it was the first of their failures, but at the end of the day, exhausted and dirty Sakura couldn’t make herself care. 

She reached Izuna as Madara reached her and the three sagged like one. 

Finally together.

After a bath the three had dinner before Itachi and Shisui interrupted with their intelligence reports. The crows were already returning with news of the Akimichi mobilizing. They would be upon their encampment in the morning. 

Izuna had predicted this though, and had the uninjured stack the Nara bodies from the earlier battle like walls to force the Akimichi into funneling their forces through openings no bigger than five men abreast and two mounted troops. 

“They won’t surge over the Nara corpses, they’re sentiment and weak like that, we won’t lose to them,” Izuna promised his family over dinner. “But if you think we still need to practice extra caution, soak the bodies in bad wine.” 

Sasuke looked a little sick at the disrespect for the dead, but Madara and Sakura didn’t bat an eye at it. Itachi and Shisui never let their displeasure show on their face, but there was no way they didn’t feel some measure of unease. 

But that was what separated them, only Izuna and Madara could share their perspective with Sakura who now remembered the cycle of life that never ended. A body was just a body. 

“Go rest now, we have an early dawn to prepare for and it is late,” Madara said to dismiss both Itachi and Izuna. 

Itachi looked Sakura’s way once more but bowed and did as his elder bid. 

“Unfortunately that goes for us as well,” Izuna said once the tent flap fell back. “But of course you are welcome to share our furs for the night. I doubt you brought your own.”

“As tempting as that sounds, I think I will need my energy for tomorrow. The same should be said for the both of you,” she laughed. 

She braced her hand on the table to stand but Madara caught her by the wrist and pulled her to her lap before folding her up in his arms. Sakura melted a little bit when he kissed her, pushing against her with a century’s worth of hunger that had her gasping and reaching back for more of his taste. 

Izuna reached for her waist with his hands and fit his hands over her hips while his mouth made her neck a kissing post. He nipped at her pulse points and tickled the place where her shoulder met her neck. She no longer wore her armor so there was easy access to the places he ached for. 

Sakura felt Izuna’s lips on her skin and then heard the way his voice rumbled with chants of her name, ‘ _Sakura, oh Sakura, my Sakura, Sakura, Sakura_ …’ He sounded near delirious, like a man in prayer. 

Madara pulled away long enough for her to breath but it wasn’t long before Izuna tipped her head back and kissed her lips from above while Madara bent his head to kiss at her breastbone.

“I’ve waited too many lifetimes for this,” he growled against her skin. 

“You can wait one more night,” Sakura gasped, bracing one hand against the crown of his skull, digging her fingers into his scalp and scratching. By the way he growled in soft pleasure it didn’t seem to be something he minded.

Izuna panted against her cheek while she breathed anew. “You’re here now, finally,” Izuna struggled to say as his lungs protested. “Why would we want to stop.”

“Because I chose you too, in this lifetime and the ones that come next, as long as we’re connected you’ll find me and I’ll respond to you.” She kissed Izuna’s cheek and then kissed Madara’s forehead. “But I don’t want this lifetime to end too soon, so please let me rest. We have battles in the morning.” 

“I don’t want this night to end,” Izuna complained. 

“All nights must end but that doesn’t mean we can’t look forward to the dawn. I’ll be here in the morning, in my armor, between the both of you.” Sakura reached for Izuna’s hand and then took Madara’s in her other hand. “I’ll not be parted from you again.” 

They remained like that for a little longer, cooling down together until it was time for Sakura to slip from their tent and bunk with another female Uchiha and try to sleep. 

She managed a handful of hours before the smell of smoke roused her. Along with the rest of the camp she emerged to see the Nara bodies being set on fire. In the dark of morning before sunrise she could see the far off bodies of the Akimichi clan assembling on the other side of the field. 

They were early. 

“Don your armor!” one of the Uchiha screamed from in between the tents. 

“Ready your swords!” another yelled from further up. 

Sakura dressed as quickly as she could, fumbling with her loose hair before forgoing the braids altogether and shoving it all up under her helmet in a mess.

She emerged from her tent ready to see the first slice of sun burning on the horizon. Dew from the night burned as fog while the Nara bodies crumbled into smoke that further obscured their vision.

“This is what we planned for,” A Uchiha bellowed. Sakura turned to see Shisui on his mount already dressed in dark armor and swinging his pole-arm over his head to rally the warriors out of their tents.

Because of the barriers made out of bodies the Uchiha could afford to fill the battle field in small waves as more and more of their troops donned their armor in time. 

There was a full platoon ready at the first gap and a couple of groups building up their numbers at break two and three. More Uchiha were filling the hastily made ramps with their longbows to rain the field with the first wave of death. Sakura and the girl she had bunked with ran to the far left of the body wall, ready to defend it if the Akimichi decided to swarm from that side. 

Sakura counted the glint of helmets and swore softly. It looked like the Akimichi had brought friends. More than just the colorful rust color there were blue helmets and sets mixed in between their ranks. 

“Hyuga?” a Uchiha cursed.

“Looking for any opportunity to crush us,” someone else sneered. “Let them try it!”

“There aren’t many, maybe it’s not a full unit.”

“They were visiting the Akimichi when we invaded,” Sasuke explained, appearing at Sakura’s side even though she hadn’t been the one to say anything. She turned to watch him tug on his wrist guards while his attended led up his horse for him to mount. 

“How did you know that?” Sakura asked, reaching for the reins of her own mount before pulling herself up into the saddle. 

A hawk wheeled through the air and then descended sharply to perch on Sasuke’s outstretched arm. He fed it something and pulled the note off her leg before sending the female bird off. 

“I’m Izuna’s second best informant. I know plenty. We aren’t in trouble, it’s only a small dining party, but they’re out front to unsettle us on purpose.”

“As if I would be intimidated by anything,” Sakura scoffed before drawing her swords. 

Sasuke smirked and ducked his head. “Yeah, that sounds more like the second coming of the mistress of the black hounds.” 

Sasuke didn’t stay any longer to chat but cantered off on his horse to meet his brother elsewhere, shouting about whatever message he had received from his hawk. 

Sakura readied her black hounds and caught the breaking sunrise in their reflection. 

The waves came as Izuna predicted. There were more bodies than anticipated, thanks to the Hyuga, but Sakura wrung out every last blessing from her ancestors and mentors to make herself a tyrant on the battlefield that couldn’t be taken down. 

It went well at first. 

But then the body wall’s fire started to die down and the Akamichi pressed hard around the outermost edges, ignoring the middle openings entirely. Izuna anticipated the adjustment and had the Uchiha fill in the three gaps with fresh bodies as the bulk of their forces turned outwards, meaning Sakura now stood on the frontlines. 

Her arms started to burn as her energy thinned. The sun was high overhead and she was still standing, but only barely. The Uchiha she had bunked with was facedown in the dirt with a pike still stuck in her neck but Sakura used her dead mother’s magic to heal the worst of her injuries. 

But like every blessing she had ever tasted, Sakura found the end of her luck before noon.

The seal on her forehead faded, too empty and spent to heal her anymore, and her body began to collect wounds like it was the latest style. 

_“Understand what we feel, Sakura,” Izuna whispered a little louder over her fingers. “In every lifetime, in every country, in every world where our fates entangle, you are the only thing worth living for.”_

“I did not come this far to fall now,” Sakura snarled, dehydrated and tired as more and more of her hair fell out from underneath her helmet. The sweat was heavy enough to turn her lashes dark. 

Her legs hurt too. She had lost her horse before the first hour and been standing or bracing against attacks since then. Chiyo’s poor armor was chipped and broken all over doing less and less to keep Sakura in one piece as her flagging strength made her swings too wide and her strikes too soft. 

_Madara growled low against the back of her skull and Sakura felt the vibrations through the places where they were connected. “You humans call this love.”_

_“_ I am not going to go down here,” Sakura swore as she backed up over another body, putting more distance between herself and another wave of foot soldiers. Their mounted troops had already been exhausted.

She remembered too many lifetimes in vivid detail. She remembered what death felt like and the sensation that came afterwards. She remembered what it was like to drift and wait for a new cycle to spin her into existence. She wasn’t ready for that. She had her happiness now and she was going to hold onto it with all she had even as her arms shook. 

Her hands were bleeding and she felt the way her biceps burned every time she lifted them for a strike. But she was damned if her limits would end her here. She would make herself into a mad dog and tear out her own happiness with her jaws if she had to! 

The battlefield cracked with the forbidden sound and too many men and women on both sides froze. It sounded again and Sakura saw where it came from. 

A fresh wave of Uchiha in dark gray armor surged out from behind with rifles and guns, turning the tide with the western’s weapons. There weren't many Uchiha, less than a hundred, but they were all mounted with rifles so they might as well have been a thousand. 

“They’re retreating now,” someone cheered.

Sakura watched alongside the other Uchiha as more and more of the Akimichi began to pull away. Like the Nara, the Uchiha chased them back and slaughtered them when they could, burning off the threat of tomorrow’s vengeance. 

Sakura’s knees shook and she fell onto them, dropping one of her swords to brace against the ground with her free hand while she held the other out.

“Sakura!”

She lifted her head as her helmet fell off and saw Gaara running for her, all smiles in his tan colored armor that had been hastily painted black. 

Oh. That made sense. The Uchiha weren't Uchiha but Ebizō’s men hiding their alliance in disguised armor. When Sakura looked she saw Temari with a rifle and a spear in either hand and didn’t doubt Kankuro and even Sasori were somewhere on the battlefield. No doubt they wanted some clout to boast of themselves.

Sakura stood with Gaara’s help and thanked him before kissing his face and telling him to help the others while she looked for the Uchiha brothers. 

The battle was all but over and she hadn’t died this time. 

She needed to get to Izuna and Madara. 

They had won and she had survived.

She couldn’t see where Madara was but heard his shouts somewhere. He was alive at least. Izuna was no longer mounted but walked in between the remains of bodies, calling out to Shisui to run ahead and see Madara for something. 

When he saw Sakura jogging towards him his whole face turned bright and soft at once.

The air was thick with smoke and the burning dead, he was stained with blood both his and not, but Izuna looked so in love when he saw her running for him. Behind him she could see just past his shoulder how Ebizō’s men were cleaning up the field with their rifles. One of them had red hair and he was turned around. 

Izuna stretched out his arms to catch her as she ran for him but Sakura grabbed the gorget around his neck instead and yanked him harshly to the side, throwing him to the grass in time to miss the crack of a rifle. 

Sasori’s eyes went wide and horrified as Sakura caught his bullet in her chest. His shot cracked the armor so soundly it split down the middle, straight through the painted dogs. Underneath her breastplate her undershirt turned red and wet, but she reached for the beads on the cord instead. 

They had been shattered as well. 

How unfair to have made it so far, only to fall at the last leg of a battle she had all but conquered. Sakura cursed in her head as the rest of her body collapsed into the grass and dirt. Her blood was the same color as all the other dead but she had spent too much of it too many times now.

It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair-not fair!

Izuna pulled her onto his lap while Madara screamed her name and ran from where he had seen her sacrifice. She meant to say something sweet to Izuna but her lips didn’t work and she felt her body grow still and beyond her control even as the younger Uchiha wept bitter tears over her. 

_‘Next time. We will make it work next time for sure, that’s our promise to you,”_ Madara swore after her eyes went dark. 

Key terms

Onna-bugeisha - Onna-bugeisha was a type of female warrior belonging to the Japanese nobility. These women engaged in battle alongside samurai men mostly in times of need. They were members of the bushi class in feudal Japan and were trained in the use of weapons to protect their household, family, and honor in times of war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first fourth of this was so hard to write because of all the stupid research I made myself get caught up in, before I said eff it and just took off writing whatever I wanted. It's not historically accurate at all. I gave up caring about the proper names real fast, it was just too detrimental to the creative process and this is for fun, so ta-da, here you go! 15K this chapter. I want to nap now, haha. 
> 
> It's so rough, I'm sorry, I know. I didn't even give it a second read so I know it's a hot mess, but I'll come back later...maybe.... I need to nap now.

**Author's Note:**

> She kills the creature and as it lays dying it curses her-she says that’s fine, pulling out its twin hearts only to find a red string of heart sinew trailing off her fingers, one for each hand. 


End file.
